


Some Kind Of Wonderful

by YourFutureWillBeBeautiful



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Art kid Hyunjin, Bad Boy Seo Changbin, Bang Chan & Seo Changbin are Best Friends, Binge Drinking, Did I mention partying cause yeah, Discussions of losing virginity etc, Fluff and Humor, Hwang Hyunjin is a Little Shit, Jisung/Chan Music Students, M/M, MinsungLix Besties!, Partying, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Issues, Secret Relationship, Sexual Humor, Shy Bio boy Minho, Slow Burn, mentions of assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 47,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28821219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourFutureWillBeBeautiful/pseuds/YourFutureWillBeBeautiful
Summary: "Geumcheon National University; post nubila phoebus""As Jisung stared up at the colossal university building that was going to be his home for the next four years, he swallowed harshly, the air catching in his windpipe. His parents had driven away, leaving him to fend for himself for the first time in his entire life. He couldn't even turn the oven on, how the hell was he meant to look after himself in a place like this?"(tldr; another chaotic college!au that nobody asked for)
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix, Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Hwang Hyunjin/Seo Changbin, Minsunglix Friendship, Past!Lee Minho/Seo Changbin, Side Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung
Comments: 191
Kudos: 175





	1. The First Day

**Author's Note:**

> Helllllo! Welcome to whatever this is. The College!AU that noone asked for and that probably exists in 298354732049 other fics! But that's okay, we out here!
> 
> The tags will be updated as we go along, so right now the relationships aren't super obvious and not all of them play out until the end (unless you've been spoiled by me on twitter, ehehe).  
> There'll be quite a few couples and 'side/not quite couples' in this and i want to be able to give them the 'screen time'(?) so i'm expecting this will be long , which is pretty much what i do, so!!! yeah!! slow burn tag!!  
> There's likely gonna be some drinking, mild drug use, and sexual conduct 'cause... College. Though the sexual content will be mostly 'vanilla' and not super kinky or anything.  
> The start of this fic is literally just Jisung finding everyone attractive because I just feel that's totally how it would actually go down.  
> Big thanks to @QrtzRoz/izzyMC for being great and reading this mess over to make sure it was in some way actually tangible!

Jisung stared up at the building, mouth still wide open and totally awestruck. His two, last remaining black suitcases were perched on the cement either side of him, and a large duffle firmly sitting on his shoulders. The rest of his stuff was already inside.

The building was colossal, with gigantic, weathered, stone walls covered in rows of white, boxed, bay windows. The sign above, read _Geumcheon National University – Caesar Residence Hall_ ”.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to help carry the rest of your stuff up?” His Dad asked, leaning against the side of the car with his arms folded.

“No, Dad, it’s fine. I’m sure me and Minho can handle the rest of it.” He replied with a tinge of sarcasm, before accepting a rather welcoming handshake-in-to-a-bear-hug from his Dad. “Thank you, though, for helping today,” he muttered into his Dad’s shoulder, gripping on tightly to his back for the last time in a while, "I'm gonna miss you guys!"

Minho stood off to the side, waiting his _own_ ‘well-earned’ bear hug from Jisung’s Dad, too.

“You be good now, Jisung,” his Mom said frantically, running around to his side of the car to sweep him up into her arms too, squeezing him until he felt all the air escape his lungs. “I mean, it, no drinking, no drugs, no cussing, no staying up all night, no—”

“—Mom. I’ll be good, I promise.” He replied, letting out a faint laugh, before his Dad clocked him and Minho respectively, giving them both a heinous _wink,_ off out of sight of his Mom’s view over her shoulder.

“And are you sure you don’t want us to come to orientation?!” She asked, cupping his cheeks in between her hands.

“I’m sure, Mom...”

“You’ll look after him, won’t you Minho?!” She said, pulling the older boy in to her arms too as he nodded, “you’ve always been such a good influence on him!”

Jisung instinctively laughed and could barely stifle the mother of all eye rolls at how _painfully_ wrong that statement actually was.

“Of course, Mrs. Han, you know me.” Minho replied, accepting the hug before she was being hauled away by Jisung’s Dad, attempting to usher her off into the passenger side of the car.

They both watched as Jisung’s parents had near enough exited out of the parking lot, the window rolling down one last time as his Mom’s hand appeared out of the window holding a camera, to take one final photo of him.

As soon as they were out of sight, Minho threw his arm around Jisung’s shoulders, pulling him closer under his arm and tightening his grip around his neck to rattle him from side-to-side.

“Your Dad got kinda hot.” Minho joked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Ugh, stop,” Jisung groaned, throwing his head back, “you’re so gross—”

“I mean it though! Like, he got ripped. I haven’t seen him in like six months, Sungie!” Minho responded, looking particularly suspect, cocking an eyebrow.

“And you’re not going to see _me_ for at least six months if you don’t cut that the fuck out right now!” Jisung laughed, rolling his eyes at the older man as they ascended the steps towards the entrance.

“Hey. Your Mom said no cussing.”

\--

His moving-in slot was technically 11:00am, but he was so nervous he’d gotten ready hours before he was meant to leave, meaning most of his room was already set up, not that he had a lot to bring in anyway…

Minho dragged the other bag in through the door after him, huffing and puffing as he usually did.

It was actually the first thing he’d actually physically helped with...

They lugged each bag in through the hallway, traipsing his way through a muted, kaki green shag carpet that one too many feet had crushed down, solidified, and muddied slightly. There were brown doors running all the way down the stretch of wall, cute little nametags adorning each one that no doubt their RA had prepared. 

The whole place smelt only _slightly_ staler than he’d imagined in his insomnia-induced nightmares, with a subtle smell of bleach lingering through from where each room had likely been deep-cleaned beforehand.

There were other students scurrying through the halls and up and down the elevator, tugging suitcases and pillows along with them. He’d uncomfortably connected eyes with a few of them; nodding through his nerves and smiling awkwardly through the pain.

At least, he’d massively lucked out and been issued a room _on the ground floor_ of all places. It was a God send, meaning he didn’t have to be crammed up against some sweaty stranger in the elevator for longer than necessary.

He opened his door, back in through _Number 16_ , his room for the year, with Minho piling in after and immediately throwing himself down on his back, across Jisung’s, _previously made_ , bed…

Typically, the room was filed with more kaki carpet, two wooden, single beds at either side of the room against the walls, two sets of plain, wooden drawers at the end of them and a simple bookcase in the corner. There was a small beechwood desk in the opposite corner too, but only _one_ , which was mildly irritating.

Jisung wasn’t particularly one for confrontation or hostility, so the idea of having to battle for study space definitely concerned him…

Luckily, he’d spoken to _Felix_ beforehand; his roommate for the year, and he seemed pretty mellow. They’d been speaking for a few months online through some dumb roommate’s app the school promoted, as neither of them knew anyone here.

Well, Jisung knew Minho of course, but he’d insisted that he was going to have a single room in his second year, leaving Jisung totally to fend for himself… He called it ‘ _character building_ ’.

A true friend...

Felix had only lived in Korea for three and a half years, but luckily, Jisung had studied abroad, so he spoke basic English too, plus they seemed to have similar interests, which entailed pretty much eating, music and watching dramas and anime.

It was a simple life, but it worked for Jisung.

The best part was that Felix seemed sweet, innocent, and not especially sociable, as he’d been getting privately tutored for a while; he probably wouldn’t be keeping him up all night.

Also, he was _incredibly_ cute, verging on attractive. Not that Jisung would pick a roommate on that reason alone, or anything…

“This is the same dorm I was in last year, you’re gonna love it, Sung.” Minho said, arms firmly behind his head, sprawled across Jisung’s bed, propped up against the pillows.

“Are you actually going to help me at all or are you just gonna take a nap?” Jisung said, launching an un-cased pillow in Minho’s direction.

“Hey, I’m helping. I’m showing you the ropes… Naps are important in college.”

“Right. Well, once you’re done _‘helping’_ I’d like to go and look around the bathroom and the rest of the dorm…” Jisung sighed, before Minho unceremoniously grabbed the younger man by the wrist, forcefully tugging him down on to the bed with him, and wrapping his legs around him like some big, dumb, tentacle demon.

He had a surprising amount of strength for someone who’s favorite pass time was ordering novelty cat houses online.

“Gaaah! I’ve missed you Sungie,” he cooed, practically choking him out in the process. “I’m hungry, Sung, buy me food!” He whined, rocking them backwards and forwards in Jisung’s tiny bed, the younger man’s head crammed against his chest.

“You’re literally older than me and it’s my first day… Don’t you think _you_ should be buying _me_ food?!” Jisung retorted through his whimpers.

“Oh, stop it, you know you’ve missed me too!” He said, grinning ear-to-ear and squeezing him even tighter.

\--

Minho, was Jisung’s unlikely ‘best friend’ of five years, one year his senior. 

They’d met during Jisung’s first year of high school, and they’d been friends ever since the first day he _Bambi-stumbled_ in through the door of the wrong classroom, full of students in the year above.

He’d loathed the last year of high school, how he couldn’t see Minho as much, how he had no one that he actually felt particularly as close to. Although, they spoke near enough every day on the phone, or over videocalls on social media so it wasn’t like they were ‘estranged’ exactly.

It was good that he had someone here a year older to show him the ropes, anyway.

The only thing was, Minho was, well… Minho was different. Not in a bad way, not necessarily even in a _good_ way either, but different, nonetheless.

He barely paid any attention to anything other than their small group of immediate friends and his work. His _societal attributes_ were _questionable_ at best; it was like he lived in a world of his own.

On top of that, Minho was undeniably one of the most handsome guys Jisung had ever laid eyes on, but relationships had just never _really_ interested him before. He’d get asked out a lot in high school, and they’d often talk about which guys were attractive, but he never really made any romantic ties.

His _‘quiet’_ demeanour was often misinterpreted as him being ‘ _mysterious’_ , or ‘ _brooding’_ by everyone else, which was seemingly quite attractive to a lot of people. The reality was, he just really did hate being forced to interact with people he didn’t want to.

Whenever they were together though, he was one of the most chaotic lifeforms in the stratosphere at the flick of a switch.

In fact, Jisung wondered how many friends Minho had managed to actually _make_ here, considering he wasn’t particularly sociable at the best of times.

Jisung had told himself that he’d try and be more _outgoing_ than he was at high school, and maybe even join a few clubs or intramural sports teams, if he could find _one_ he was actually somewhat good at…

 _So, that being said, maybe Minho wouldn’t be the best person to introduce him to college life,_ Jisung thought. 

\--

It was nearly 3:00pm by the time Felix showed up at the dorm for his move-in slot.

After unpacking everything, they took a walk around the communal areas and some of the shared lounges. Minho showed where the library was, both of the on-site dining halls, the study rooms, and most importantly, the music rooms.

Fully soundproofed, with dual monitors, Audio Interface Combos, _Akai_ professional-level production pads in each one...

They finally wandered back through some kind of dull, beige shared living room in their dorm with two worn-down, brown, fabric couches, a flat-screen and sliding glass door out on to his floor’s shared downstairs veranda. 

It wasn’t particularly luxurious, apart from the down-sized, royal blue pool table, off-centre in the middle of the room, which looked brand new in comparison to the rest of the furniture.

“Ah, they got a new pool table,” Minho said, nonchalantly, peering out of the window, “that’s good.”

“Why…?” Jisung asked nervously, “what happened to the last one?”

“Oh. You probably don’t want to know.” Minho responded.

It wasn’t until they were back to Jisung’s room that they realised Felix had actually shown up.

Jisung had barely even gotten his shoes off before Minho had launched himself on to his bed again, when they noticed the new assortment of _things_ in the room.

Two peachy-colored suitcases covered in the remnants of _Adventure Time_ stickers, a couple of fluffy white pillows, a large _Kakao Friends_ plush and two draw-string bags perched up against one of the beds.

There was a large Tupperware on the desk too, lid cracked ajar letting out the aroma of vanilla, cinnamon, and white chocolate.

“Oh, hey there!” A lowish, burly-sounding voice spoke as they heard the door _click._

Jisung span around at the sudden intrusion before he saw a mass of bleach-blonde, fluffy hair peeking through from the front door. 

“Oh, hi!” Jisung responded, a little taken aback.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to intrude on anything!” Felix said apologetically, looking between Minho and Jisung, “I was just looking around. You must be Jisung!” He smiled, a slight accent peeking through when he spoke.

Jisung instantly blushed. The boy standing in front of him, wrapped in a large white hoodie, had arguably the _lowest voice he’d ever tangibly heard_ , but he was insanely soft looking, freckles spattered across his cheeks and a smile that could put the sun to shame.

He’d seen Felix in pictures, but he was even more than Jisung had ever imagined, in real life.

“Uh, yeah. I must be… Yeah, Jisung. Nice to meet you, Felix!” He put his hand out awkwardly, and the other boy latched on to it. Felix’s hands were even tinier than his. They were cute, and kind of _abnormally_ smooth... He placed his other hand over top of Jisung’s to encase it and bowed a little, showing more respect than he probably deserved.

“Well, I’m excited to finally be rooming with you, Jisung, after talking for so long!”

“Likewise— Oh, sorry, this is Minho. He’s not living here or anything but… In his head, he probably is.”

Minho scoffed from the bed, rolling over to the side to perch his head on his wrist, propped up by his elbow in some kind of seductive, Aphrodite-type pose or something, whilst giving Felix a _salute,_ of all things.

“It’s okay, he’s… He’s cool.” Jisung stuttered, his hands getting clammy under Felix’s grip through his nerves as the boy stared at him with those wide, deep-brown, doe eyes.

Jisung cringed internally, why the fuck did he just refer to Minho as _cool,_ exactly?

“Nice to meet you too, Minho. Oh! There’s some scones and stuff, there, if you want some, and some cookies. They’re not my best but they’re still good, and Mom insisted, she said it’d be a good first impression!” The blonde boy said, bounding across to the table next to one of the beds, and retrieving the baked goodness.

“Oh, thanks…” Jisung replied, after having a few excitedly shoved into his hand. “I got here a while ago, so I chose that bed, I hope you don’t mind or—

“—Not at all! This side is totally fine, thanks. I don’t mind. I’ll just set up.”

Felix launched himself down to his knees, crouched cutely around his suitcase as he pulled his things out. He looked so small, and this was coming from _Jisung_ , who’d been teased mercilessly for being ‘tiny’ his entire life…

He looked back across to Minho, who _unapologetically_ clocked him, and raised his eyebrows questionably in a way that could only be interpreted as ‘ _he’s kind of cute, huh?_ ’

 _‘No, he’s my roommate, you idiot’_ Jisung exaggeratedly signed back with his eyes, swiping his hand across his throat in _a ‘cut it out’_ motion.

 _‘Your loss!’_ Minho finally mimed with a smile, his head falling back to the pillow. 

“I think the RA wants to have a floor meeting once we’ve unpacked.” The blonde boy beamed.

“Do you need a hand with your stuff, or are your parents here—?”

“— _Australia_ , remember? No parents that aren’t eight hours away by plane.” He giggled, tucking back into his bag.

\--

Time spent with Felix was perfectly uneventful.

He’d also found out that he and Felix had birthday’s just _one_ _day_ _apart_ , so it was almost like fate that they’d met, and he couldn’t have asked for a more docile roommate if he tried, after hearing all the horror stories about Minho’s old roommate… 

Just as he thought, Felix was into a lot of the same shows as he was, and he mainly just sat up at his computer playing rpg’s or skyping his parents and sister at dumb’O’clock due to the time differences.

Minho and Felix seemed to mesh well too; or rather, Minho didn’t bother him, and Felix didn’t bother Minho. It was perfect for Jisung to have his best friend and roommate get along; they seemed to just kind of, peacefully co-exist.

The first week of moving in kind of went by in a blur of people arriving and disappearing. They did a few off-campus food shops to fill their kitchen refrigerator, met a few of their floor mates and Minho had insisted on showing them the best spots around campus to ‘avoid people’, which totally went against Jisung’s internal commitment to becoming a more outgoing person...

Jisung was all for trying to be more outwardly sociable, but for the time being, he just wanted to settle in, so they spent most of their first week eating cup ramen and watching _Netflix_ whilst their floor mates attended embarrassing beach and cowboy themed parties that Minho said were _‘a literal awkward nightmare’_.

\--

Friday morning came around, and they spent it trawling through the open area out the front of their dorm before finding a quiet spot to roost in. Only the weekend sat in between his last days of freedom and Jisung’s first official day of ‘classes’. Which wasn’t so bad, because he only had three classes anyway, and one of them Felix was attending, too.

They settled on a grassy patch that was encircled with trees, surrounding a long, gravelled walkway across to their residence hall, where a scattering of other students were spread out across the landscape. There were a few benches, but they were otherwise pre-occupied with other freshmen and Minho didn’t particularly feel like mingling.

The older man sipped nonchalantly on his boba, whilst Felix was tapping away on his tablet on his stomach, both he and Jisung looking through their schedules for the coming week.

Suddenly, Jisung’s attention was pulled by the sound of raucous laughter, and he tried his best to shield his eyes with his hand and squint through the 11:00am sun, across towards the entrance of their dorm to see what the commotion was about.

“Woah woah _woah_ , who’s _that_?” Jisung asked, staring across the way at a gaggle of boys walking through the quad. Minho leant up on his elbows to check, peering over the top of his orange-tinted sunglasses.

Off in front, were three guys, two taller and one shorter guy walking ahead, strolling towards their residence hall with a couple of smaller suitcases dressed in _Off-White_ and wearing expensive-ass designer watches. He saw one of them throw his head back in laughter, before the other sterner looking boy with some round glasses shook his head and slapped him lightly around the back of the head.

“Brown, curly-haired dude in the black muscle shirt? That’s Chan. He’s a Junior, everyone knows him; his brother was kind of a big deal here a few years ago so he kind of just, does whatever he wants.” Minho replied.

“No, no, not _him_. The tall guy with the black hair in a ponytail? Standing next to him, in the loose, white shirt?” Jisung said in awe, watching the taller man push his hand through his bangs.

Minho pushed his sunglasses even further down his nose, shaking his head.

“Uhhh... No idea, must be new...” he added, shrugging his shoulders.

“Oh. He’s so handsome,” Felix added, looking across too, gazing across from where he was laid outstretched on his stomach on the grass, “that Chan guy is kind of cute, as well.”

“You know, weirdly… He’s an Aussie too. Strange coincidence…” Minho added.

Felix perked up immediately, abruptly pulling himself up to a kneeling position like he’d never heard of a single other Australian person co-existing in his life.

“No way?!” He said, his eyes wide open.

“Yeah, but before you get yourself too excited, Felix, he’s a total dick.” Minho sighed.

“Oh… Why?” He asked, despondently, slumping back down to sit on the back of his calves.

“He’s just the biggest ignoramus you’ll ever meet. Don’t get me started on his rich, little, frat boy horde. They’re even more questionable than him. No idea why he’s helping a couple of freshmen move in though…”

“Are they… Going to _our_ dorm?” Jisung asked, perching his head up to watch them ascend the stairs.

“Well, Chan lives off campus with eight of the biggest douchebags on this planet. The other’s must be first years, I guess, 'cause I don't recognise them.” Minho answered.

Jisung watched as the tallest of the three, who’d caught his eye, laughed along to what the other two at the back were saying, his profile equal parts chiselled _and_ soft, his skin perfectly smooth and glistening in the sun. He noticed the subtle flex of his back muscles as he pulled his suitcase up the first step, and Jisung found himself audibly swallowing as he watched the man disappear in to his dorm. 

“Well, _fuck…”_ Jisung replied, dumbfounded.

“Hey. Your Mom said no cussing.” Minho added.


	2. Caesar

“This whole place kind of stinks of bleach...” Hyunjin said, hoisting his suitcase on top of his bed and letting out a sigh of relief. He ran his hands through his hair, thanking his lucky stars that he’d scored a room on the ground floor. And by lucky stars, he meant Chan.

“You’re annoyed that somewhere smells _clean?_ Alright then.” Seungmin retorted, finally landing on his designated bed too.

Seungmin had insisted that they got here at the start of the week; some time to settle down and have a look around the campus, but with his Dad being dealing with a huge civil litigation case and Hyunjin’s own Mom on a business trip to Venice, there was no one to actually take them. That was, until his friend Chan stepped up, who came to school here, too.

“Alright boys,” Chan announced, clapping his hands together resolutely, “your stuff’s in the storage lockers down site, here’s the keys, yada yada, be good, all that stuff.”

“Thanks for the lift Channie, you’re a literal lifesaver.” Hyunjin said, slapping his hand in to Chan’s.

“That’s what friends are for right? Plus, you know _your_ Mom would tell _my_ Mom and then I’d literally have to listen to it all day and I’ve got way too much stuff to do,” he said, shaking his head and pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

Hyunjin and Chan had been friends since they were kids, their Mom’s had been Project Managers at the same visual merchandising company for nearly twenty years. Chan was a little older than him, but they’d always meshed well, as if they were the same age. Hyunjin had very little interest in people his age or younger, Seungmin being one of the only exceptions.

It was good that he had someone here a bit older to show him the ropes, anyway. 

The only thing was, Chan was the epitome of the seemingly perfect college student. Chan was his frat’s Vice President and maintained a 3.9GPA as well as coaching swimming and soccer outside of school…

It was pretty impressive that Chan had so much time for a social life too, and a _thriving_ one, at that. Everyone apparently knew who he was, to the point where he even had a pull with the RA’s.

He was charming, and totally unstoppable.

Plus, he was practically Hyunjin’s blood brother since birth, so it gave him an automatic _in,_ to pretty much whatever event or party he wanted to go to…

“When’s your first class, Jin?” The older man asked, stuffing his hand back in to into his jean’s pockets, burying his phone back into the denim.

Hyunjin slumped down on his own bed, lethargically reaching for the satchel on his nightstand and pulling out his laptop. He heaved the lid open, bringing the screen back to life by swiping over the touchpad. He checked over the syllabus in front of him, dragging his finger along the screen.

“Uh, Monday, 10:00am. Lecture hall next to the _Lear_ Building.”

“Oh, Monday morning. Bummer.” Chan said, slinking down on to the computer chair next to their desk, dropping his suspiciously heavy-sounding bag down next to him.

“Could be worse. Seungmin usually wakes up at like 5:00am anyway…” Hyunjin laughed breathily, looking back across to him, watching him neatly placing his clothes down in little stacks across his bed.

“No, I don’t!” he whined, looking between Hyunjin and Chan, “anyway, it’s not necessarily like an actual class. We just have to attend this lecture about safety on campus before we do anything, then I have calc and Hyunjin has English and that’s it for like, the whole day. I might do some extra study though, so I don’t waste any time, or take a— Woah, woah, _woah!_ ” He shouted, abruptly stopping in his tracks. His eyes darting down to Chan’s hands, with panic in his voice, “what the heck is that?!”

Chan chuckled to himself, pulling a sizeable, frosted-glass bottle filled with clear liquid out of his backpack and tossing it over to Hyunjin, who caught it in both hands with a little _clink_ against his pinkie rings.

“Tequila?” Hyunjin asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, “looks like an expensive one, too?”

“Think of it as a settling in gift. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you guys this room, so go wild, but _don’t_ get caught.” Chan said, raising an eyebrow.

He slapped his hands down on his knees to push himself up, meandering across the room to Hyunjin’s side. He placed his palms down on either side of Hyunjin’s shoulders, before yanking him up from the bed to face him directly on. “I told your Mom I’d give you the full college experience, right? So that’s what I’m doing.”

“Chan, it’s literally been less than a day and you’re already a _terrible_ influence.” Hyunjin scoffed, shrugging his hands off of his shoulders and placing the bottle down on the nightstand.

“Oh, like you’re such a good student, all of a sudden, huh, Jinnie?” The older man teased.

“Of course I am!” Hyunjin responded in feigned shock, batting his eyelashes.

“Pfft, whatever. On that note, tomorrow, get to mine for eight-thirty, alright? I gotta go,” the older man said, waltzing nonchalantly across to the door and yanking at the handle down.

“Sure thing, I’ll be there.” Hyunjin confirmed, giving him a parting nod.

“ _Get there_ at eight-thirty? At night?! I thought you said it was just a casual meet-up?!” Seungmin suddenly sprung to his feet, shuffling over to the door.

“Yeah, I just want you two to meet my housemates. Maybe mark it on your _highlighted campus calendar_ , Seungmin.” The older man scoffed, pointing to the rolled-up, laminated poster propped up next to his bed. He patted Seungmin on the top of the head like a pet dog, his eyes scrunching up sardonically, “see you there, Seungmin, and see _you_ at your future house, Jin! Don’t go drinking that tequila before my big party, alright?”

The older man pulled down the handle, shooting Hyunjin a wink before he slipped out, leaving Seungmin frantically trying to flatten down his tousled hair.

“I’m never joining, Channie. I’m my own person!” Hyunjin shouted, loud enough so that the older man could hear him down the hallway.

\--

They both had a look around their dorm, checking out the shared living room. It was pretty big, with a pool table in the middle. Hyunjin sucked at pool, but what he didn’t suck at, was beer pong. The room was just beige, with a small counter at the side with a coffee machine, toaster and a grill, just for basic snacks on-the-go.

There were a few freshmen ducking in and out on occasion, but it had already gone early afternoon, so most _sane_ freshmen were checking out the campus, much like Seungmin was bothering him to...

Hyunjin slumped down into the couch, it was too hot to go outside; he didn’t want skin damage... Plus, he was exhausted from setting his room up, so he decided that finding the lecture hall could be a _tomorrow morning_ , kind of problem.

Suddenly, a boy shuffled into the room through the opened door, bleached-blonde hair, thick black, plastic glasses on and a full denim ensemble. It was totally ludicrous but it worked; Hyunjin kind of liked the absurdity of it. He looked a bit bewildered at their presence, his head bobbing up as he blinked at them a few times through his spectacles.

“Uh, hey...” the boy said, ducking in towards the counter side, arms full of a pink box of some kind of confectionary in his hands. He placed it down on the side, shuffling through it, placing various snacks on the side.

“Hey there! I’m Seungmin, this is Hyunjin!” Seungmin said excitedly, standing to attention at the introduction of someone new. Hyunjin remained slumped on the couch, until pulled up by his arm against his will…

“Alright...?” the boy responded, pulling out some kind of strawberry coated _something_ out of it’s wrapper and shoving it into the communal toaster, before turning on the coffee machine. He pulled the jug out, hitting the filtered water tap and filling it, before pulling a black coffee mug out of the top cabinet. He placed it down on the counter with a _clank_ and ripped open a bag of white sugar that had been left on the side.

An awkward silence filled the room as Seungmin searched for something to say. 

“We’re in room 4, just moved in today.” He said, enthusiastically, trying to fill the empty air. He ducked his head around to try and grab the other boy’s attention, taking a few steps towards him.

“I’m in 3.” The boy responded, totally deadpan, not even bothering to turn around and acknowledge them, too focused on filling his coffee filter.

“Room 3? So, you must be… Are you one of our suitemates?” Seungmin asked.

“Well, I’m your only suitemate. I live in my room alone...”

“Wait,” Hyunjin said suspiciously, “are you a freshman?”

“Yep.”

The boy reached for the sugar again, and started spooning it into the mug, heaped spoonful after spoonful, before hitting the button on the coffee machine.

“So, how the hell did you get a single room?!” Hyunjin asked, interest suddenly peaked.

The youngish looking boy turned back to them, slowly, spoon in his mouth after licking the sugar off of it, and tapped the side of his nose, somewhat ominously... His eyes were squinted, like he knew something he shouldn’t… Seungmin and Hyunjin glanced at each other with a tinge of concern in their eyes...

The boy pulled the spoon out of his mouth, waving it around in front of him.

“I’m Jeongin. Not that it matters. I probably won’t be seeing you around or talking to you much.”

“Y-You won’t?” Hyunjin asked.

“No, because I don’t really want to.”

Hyunjin was taken aback. No one ever just _‘didn’t want to talk to him’_ ; in fact, Hyunjin was the kind of guy people insisted on bothering at any given moment. Jeongin’s total lack of interest almost made him want the kid’s approval, for some bizarre reason unbeknownst to him. Plus, this guy was _bold_ ; double denim fit and a single room? There was something intriguing about him. 

Jeongin reached for his strawberry covered whatever-it-was, and pulled it out of the toaster, shuffling it from hand to hand due to the heat, the icing-type substance dripping over the side.

“Wow, I kinda like him,” Seungmin whispered, leaning in behind Hyunjin’s ear with a little laugh.

“Uh? Don’t you think that’s a little rash, like, we’ve only just met?” Hyunjin said, walking towards the small counter and placing his hands on the side, “surely if we’re gonna share the same bathroom we—”

“Yeah, I’m aware we’ve only just met, I was there, remember?” The boy cut him off, turning back around with a smile on his face, so wide that his eyes seemed to disappear.

“Wow, I really like him,” Seungmin laughed, shaking his head and folding his arms across his chest at how mortified Hyunjin looked at the younger man being so fearless.

“Are you even old enough to be here!?” Hyunjin asked, leaning across the counter, the irritation seeping through his words at the impudence of this kid.

“Old enough. I skipped a year. High school was boring. Anyway, I wake up early so I’ll be using the bathroom at 6:45am so just, don’t be there. Thanks.” He started pacing out of the room, taking a bite of his whatever-it-was, just the sound of the coffee machine still running in the background. “Oh, and by the way, that coffee machine is mine, so just, yeah, don’t use that.” 

\--

It was Monday morning, and Hyunjin had meticulously planned out his outfit for his first ‘ _class_ ’, waking up at nearly 9:00am in the _morning_ , it was horrific.

He’d picked out a simple outfit; dark acid-washed jeans and a belt, with an over-sized navy _Gucci_ sweater with yellow lion embroidered across the chest panel. He’d accessorized with a small gold necklace and some leather-look Chelsea boots.

It was a semi-casual yet totally expensive look that kind of let off a, _I don’t really care about being here, but I’m gonna look good if I have to be_ , kind of vibe… It was perfect.

He found the _Lear_ building pretty easily, stopping to ask some giggling girls where it was, who were more than happy to assist him.

He walked in through into the lecture hall, looking around at the _sheer size_ of the place. All the chairs were worn-out, beechwood with little, blue plastic tables attached, and at the front there was a stage, around two metres across, with a microphone podium centred on top of it.

There were probably two hundred or so seats in the room, most of them filled with students already tapping away at their laptops and excitedly chatting amongst themselves.

Hyunjin had arrived pretty much on time, which meant, way too late to get a good seat, apparently. Luckily, Seungmin had gone for a morning jog at 6:00am and had been up ever since. He probably arrived here before the doors were even open.

“Jin!” Seungmin stage-whispered from across the hall, “over here, I saved you a seat!”

 _As if on cue_ , Hyunjin thought.

He took a _jovial traipse_ down the closest set of stairs with a bit of a spring in his step and his hands in his pockets. He was internally trying his best to ignore the people staring at him. Too many annoying _pick me_ student’s eyes wandering around the room as he made his way across to his seat. He shrugged it off, not wanting to look uneasy at all.

The hum of the room settled as soon as a woman in a white cardigan and black pencil skirt filtered in the room, with a large brown laptop bag in her hand. She gave a modest wave before approaching the podium and scanning over the room to look at how many saps had bothered to show up. She seemed somewhat happy about the turnout.

She coughed, before placing her laptop on the stand and connecting it to the projector, and finally talking into the little microphone attached to the podium.

“Good morning everyone! If you have any struggles seeing the text behind me, please consider moving slightly closer to the front of the class!” she announced, with a bright smile on her face.

Not one single person moved, just the sounds of a few chairs creaking as everyone looked around to check if _anyone else_ had moved...

“Anyone? I don’t bite!” She laughed, scoring a few pitiful chuckles from the front row. A couple of students finally moved, filling a few of the seats in the second row.

She started with an introduction to who exactly she was, and then set out the itinerary for the lecture, about campus safety. The dreaded text came up on screen; “ _Safe, sensible, secure_.”

Hyunjin immediately felt his eyes closing, it was hot out and he was wearing a sweater, and he tended to get sleepy if he got too hot. On top of that, his late-night shenanigans with Chan’s housemates ended up going on until 3am on Saturday, and listening to some middle-aged woman talk about the _dangers of misuse of campus gym equipment_ wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun time.

Seungmin was writing notes next to him in his little striped notepad, and Hyunjin couldn’t help but let out a scoff at how cute Seungmin could be when he was focused. He was nauseatingly endearing.

The lecture was set out in four parts, ‘ _What to expect’_ , _‘Timekeeping’_ , ‘ _Rules and regulations’_ and _‘Seeking guidance and advice’_. As soon as the ‘ _Rules and regulations’_ text appeared on screen, Hyunjin felt himself snap back in to consciousness.

“Maintaining the school’s principles and honoring the college’s code of conduct is one of the main topics for today’s lecture,” She said, clicking the little button in her hand for the next slide.

An image appeared on the screen, of a guy in a blue fleece, slumped over a toilet in a dingy bathroom stall, and typically, a few of the students behind him let out some breathy chuckles.

To which, the woman sarcastically cocked an eyebrow, exhaling under her breath.

 _Firstly, which college student wears fleece?_ Hyunjin thought.

And secondly, presuming the image was flashed up on screen to _deter students_ and to encourage them to _avoid_ going down the same route, she probably shouldn’t have chosen an image of three people standing behind they poor, fleeced-up guy, with smiles on their faces and their thumbs up…

All it did, was force Hyunjin to remember that time he was tripping balls in his Mom’s bathroom, where he was so far removed from his actual body that he’d convinced himself he was a ghost. All whilst Seungmin innocently sang karaoke in the next room whilst tipsy on wine coolers.

He smiled at the hazy memory, failing to hold back a laugh. Seungmin immediately spun his head around at the noise, glaring at the side of his head. The rest of the students looked towards him too. He obviously didn’t realise how loud he’d laughed.

“Yes? You there, do you have a question?” The lecturer asked, shouting across the room.

“Oh, no. I was just—"

“—No one wants to be the person who ruins everyone’s fun, isn’t that right?”

“Of course not. Sorry.” He apologised, tilting his head, and Seungmin looked at him with such distain he felt like he was going to get _friend-grounded_ when they got back to their room, which was totally a real thing in their friendship, by the way.

“So, be sensible. There is no doubt that you’ll be offered a drink or two, in your time here, but the best action to take is to remember that no one is forcing you to—

The back door suddenly door flew open with a _bang_ ; and everyone in the hall turned around to see what the intrusion was.

Two, frazzled students swung in through the doors, heavily panting and clearly out of breath.

One of them had blonde, dyed hair and was wearing a denim jacket, the other, brunette one, was wearing a full khaki hoodie and a black cap underneath the hood, even though it was sweltering hot outside. He was shining with sweat, and the tip of his nose was reddened and his cheeks looking puffy.

“We are so sorry!” the blonde boy started saying, drawing the entire class’ attention with how low his voice was, with the hint of some kind of accent. The other boy grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket and immediately swung across to the side, taking the long way around as to not walk in front of as many of the other students.

He tugged him down a row of steps, his head held low as his entire face began to match his nose.

They slipped in to two different seats, as there weren’t any spaces left together. The blonde boy kept bowing as he went, sliding into a chair next to some gross dude wearing combat boots and a camo windbreaker, and the other guy with the dark hair sat in the _row in front of them_ , in the one remaining space, awkwardly in the middle of the row of desks.

Hyunjin cringed as he watched the boy slide his waist through the middle, all the other students throwing him frowns and grimacing as he shimmied past them. The whole thing felt so awkward.

“Boys, it might be a good idea to spend the first week on campus actually _locating_ your classes, for future reference,” the tutor spat at them passive-aggressively, and a few of the other students snickered in response, “oh, and we don’t wear hats in the lecture hall. It’s disrespectful.”

Hyunjin cocked an eyebrow. There weren’t any regulations on not wearing hats in the lecture hall... He almost felt bad for how badly this woman was trying to publicly embarrass him. 

He watched as the guy in front awkwardly fumbled around a little, before pulling his cap off and running the palms of his hands over his hair to try and flatten it.

Hyunjin leant back in his chair, reaching into his own bag, and pulling out his beanie, a navy blue one with _BURBERRY_ written across the front, in an obnoxiously large font. He slipped it over his head, pulling a few strands of hair out of the sides, watching the woman’s eyes dart back across to him.

“Excuse me? Did I not just say hats were not allowed in the hall!?” She screeched.

“Uh? Sorry?” The nervous boy in front responded, before noticing her eyes had actually focused off past his shoulder. He turned back around in confusion, clocking eyes with Hyunjin for a brief moment. 

“I don’t see a sign?” Hyunjin said, cocking his head to the side, and all of the students around him ducked back into their seats at his audacious attitude. Seungmin looked like he was about to _physically_ implode, his eyes widening, in part fear, part embarrassment.

“Excuse me?” She said, totally perplexed.

“With all due respect. The signs say no smoking, no phones, no eating, no drinking… Nothing about no headwear?”

The boy with the cheeks stared at him in awe, before pulling his lower lip in to his mouth to try and conceal a smile that he was _failing_ to hide, his face still dusted a little pink from embarrassment as he slipped into his seat.

Hyunjin smiled at him back, giving him a nod in solidarity.

During the rest of the awkwardly tense lecture, the boy had turned around to look at him in his peripheral vision maybe three, or four times, by pretending he was looking out of the window closest to them.

He probably thought he was being subtle about it.

He wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hyunjin, seungmin and jeongin added to the batch! 
> 
> my favourite, chaotic frat boys, coming up next! <3
> 
> outfit references: [For Hyunjin](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsSd6HjXAAQ61JC?format=jpg&name=large), [For Jeongin](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Er8GZ7vXcAAmEEs?format=png&name=small)!
> 
> @YfwbbS on bird app


	3. Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw // recreational drug use

Changbin pulled his helmet off, running an open hand through his bangs in plain sight of the cute-ish guy he’d managed to bag from his first night out since college started up again. He’d only been home for less than a week and everyone was already putty in his hands.

The guy was okay looking, with a long-ish, dark brown hair, slightly curly. His name was maybe, Namkyu or Nakyu, or something. He didn’t really care.

The guy immediately latched on to him and started kissing him as soon as his helmet was off, his hands gripping on to his leathers before he could even say anything.

“Hang on, let me at least get the door open...” he murmured, flicking his lip ring back around by scraping his lip against his teeth. He heard the guy whine at the loss of contact; _literal putty_ , he thought.

He pushed his keys in the keyhole, twisting it to release the catch. He shoved his way through it, as the guy firmly attached himself, twisting his arms around his neck, kissing him through the door, barely stumbling through.

He was, alright. A lot of teeth and a lot of tongue, but honestly, Changbin was so touch starved by this point he didn’t even really fight it.

He shunted his back into the door to close it, slotting his own hands through the guys’ hair, before pulling back to reach for the zipper of his leather jacket. As he did, he suddenly caught something, or _someone_ , in his periphery, sitting across in one of the living room chairs.

Chan.

“Holy shit, you scared me!” Changbin shouted, launching himself against the coat stand next to the front door. He exhaled deeply and jolted forward a little, revealing the fairly windswept, petite, brunette guy ducking behind him in shock, looking utterly mortified as Chan’s face came in to focus across the darkness of the sitting room.

“ _Your_ bike wakes _me_ up, and I’m the one that scared you?” Chan sneered, arms crossed over his chest, wrapped in a fuzzy, burgundy bathrobe perched on one of the armchairs his hands in his lap.

“It’s a Saturday night Chan, why are you asleep at midnight?” Changbin joked, dumping his helmet down on the window seat beside the door, and unzipping his bike jacket down the centre, the shuffles of leather and metal scraping against each other.

“Okay, firstly, it’s _Sunday_ , and secondly, it’s nearly _3am_ , Changbin...” Chan said, through gritted teeth. He unfolded his arms, placing his hands on either side of the rests of the chair and rolled his head back slightly, failing to mask his irritation.

“Holy shit, time flies!” Changbin laughed, peeling the rest of his leathers off, and tossing his coat down on top of his helmet.

“You better not be drinking when you’re driving—”

“I’m not, _Dad_.” Changbin teased, causing the guy behind to let out a faint laugh before he slapped his hand across his mouth and ducked backwards out of sight. 

“You on something?” Chan asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Nope.”

“Good,” Chan said, letting out an internal sigh of relief, “and who’s this?”

Chan rose to his feet, gesturing to the dude shying away behind Changbin with his hand. He could tell that the mystery pick-up of Changbin's' _knew_ who he was, just by how he leant backwards. That, or he was mortified at Chan seeing him have his tongue down his housemate’s throat.

“Uh, yeah, this is…” Changbin started, turning back to face him, the cute guy _beaming_ expectantly as soon as he looked towards him.

The entire room went deathly quiet, and in that exact moment, Chan could have sworn he could _hear_ the cogs in Changbin’s brain physically turning… Chan could also see the guys eyes widen in the realisation that Changbin had utterly _no clue_ who he was.

“Nah… Nay—No, wait, Ni…” He stumbled, reaching for his hand. The guy viciously swiped it away, his mouth agape as he gasped.

“You’re kidding me?! You are _such_ a dick…!” He spat, rolling his eyes backwards and Changbin frantically started trying to defend himself. The guy turned heel to yank the door back open, causing Chan to wince at how loud they were being, before he stormed out of the door, rapidly making his way across their front yard.

Changbin immediately tugged the door back open and stuck his head out of the door calling after him down the path.

“It’s cold out!” He shouted, testing it by placing one of his feet down against the concrete, causing him to shudder at the chilly ground and duck back inside a little.

“I can walk back to campus! Don’t bother calling!” The guy squealed, turning back to look at him one last time before stomping off down the road into the distance until he was totally out of sight. Changbin walked back inside, throwing his head backwards and exhaling, before simply, _shrugging_.

“I wasn’t gonna call him after, anyway... Oh well,” he said, before softly chuckling to himself and pulling the door closed behind him, slotting the chain across the latch, “He was a shit kisser, anyway.”

Chan clicked his tongue against the inside of his left cheek, his head darting back to meet Changbin’s gaze as he placed his hands firmly on his hips.

“Changbin, we have new freshmen, you should set a better example. It’s seriously fucking late, and I don’t want people screaming down the street... You know how badly we nearly got busted last time after you screwed over—.”

“—Oh please. You’re no saint, Chan, and what I do outside of this house is none of your business.” Changbin replied.

“It _is_ my business if you’re gonna bring people back to _said house_ , this late, when our new housemates have fucking classes tomorrow,” the older man warned.

“Alright, sheesh…” Changbin said, a grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth. He tossed his bike keys into the marble bowl next to the windowsill, raising a cynical eyebrow at the older man. He waltzed over to the stairs, attempting to take himself to his room.

“You know, your shitty attitude is really starting to piss me off.” Chan said, failing to bite his lip as the other man passed by him.

“Bite me.” Changbin scoffed, before gripping on to the stair railing, pulling himself up a few steps.

Chan suddenly grabbed at his wrist, pulling him backwards in a surge of frustration. He spun the younger man back around lock their eyes together, faces inches apart.

“Don’t piss me off, Changbin.” He cautioned; his voice menacingly low as his browbone furrowed, casting a shadow across his face.

“Or what?” Changbin said through gritted teeth, ‘Don’t act like you can afford this place without me, Chan. You’re not gonna do shit.”

Chan blinked a few times, to release the tension built up in his face, and freed his arm, spitefully shoving his wrist down with his hand whilst Changbin shrugged out of his grip.

Chan looked down to his feet, squeezing his eyes together and shaking his head as if snapping out of his little _episode_ before rubbing his palms over his face.

“You seriously need to chill, you’re gonna give yourself a fucking heart attack,” Changbin sneered, “the fuck’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t... I don’t know, what with rush and classes and tutoring… My Mom’s on my case, my sister’s starting school soon, I’m fucking exhausted and it’s literally the first week...” Chan said letting his head lull down in front of him before wandering back across the living room, pacing with his hands in his hair.

“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me…” Chan apologised, turning back to face him, and Changbin let out a gentle sigh, before slightly nodding in affirmation. They clapped their hands together, clasping them tightly in a _bro hold_ before dropping them back down. 

“It’s, whatever... Besides, I know something that’d calm you down… If you’re interested…” He said, raising his eyebrows, his voice tinged with the slightest edge of chaos that he’d learnt to expect from Changbin.

“You’re not my type, man.” Chan said, dryly.

“Fuck you, that’s not what I meant...!”

\--

The wind was getting colder, and Chan could feel one of the roof tiles digging into his lower back, but he was too scared to shuffle any further forward. He took a drag, then another, then another, staring out across their yard, holding on to it for as long as possible, before slowly exhaling into the breeze.

“Hey, I said two toke, pass…” Changbin whined lethargically, snatching the remains of his joint back, and shoving it in between his index finger and thumb, pressing the last remnants his lips. He inhaled near enough through his _teeth_ with a hiss, the heat from the cherry stinging against his lips. “Fucking hell…”

“Sorry...” Chan said, slumped against the back of the windowpane. He looked up, his eyes wandering across the night’s sky in glorious slow motion.

Changbin’s room was situated above the kitchen extension, meaning he could sit on the flat rooftop whenever he wanted, perched up against his window. He’d even brought a comforter out for them; it was perfect for nights like this.

Chan rather enjoyed watching the moon, counting the stars across the sky. There was something wonderful about how deep the sky was, how we could see it, but we’d only explored less than four percent of it. The sunrise was starting to peek through, casting the skyline in a rose-tinted glow, it was soothing somehow.

Changbin took one final toke before he rolled his eyes, flicking the roach over the side into their back yard, exhaling deeply before stretching his arms above his head with a sleepy groan.

“Do you have class tomorrow?” He asked, tapping a fairly out-of-it Chan on the shoulder.

“Yeah, but not until 11:30am.”

“Ah, good. You look like shit.” Changbin responded, staring off into space with him.

Chan barely smoked, but when he did, he became even more unbearably _woke_ as the time went on. It was almost fun to Changbin, the slight change in their power dynamic when he was like this. Changbin could say whatever he wanted and Chan would probably barely even remember it.

They stayed there in silence for a moment, and Changbin could hear the older man’s deep inhales and exhales, lapping up the fresh air before he heard the man shudder.

“It’s cold out here, like, really cold,” Chan said suddenly, eyes sluggishly blinking, illuminated by the subtle pink seeping through the fluffy tips of the clouds.

“It’s like 57 degrees…” Changbin responded, checking the temperature on his phone, and clocking the time, too. It was nearing 4:00am, Bam would be up in an hour, and he himself wanted to be up early- _ish_ to get to the labs. He assumed the chances of that were growing increasingly slim.

“I can really feel the wind though, and it’s cold.” Chan said, closing his eyes and throwing his head back a little.

“That’s just the pot...” Changbin retorted, a grin cracking through.

“Alright, well, I’m heading inside…” Chan said, carefully standing to attention, keeping his centre of gravity low as not to royally fuck over in his daze. He turned around and held his hands out in front of him, gripping on to the window frame and pulling himself through.

His head felt heavy, really heavy, and everything felt a lot slower than usual.

Once he was inside, he felt the warmth slowly return to his body, and slumped down against the side of Changbin’s bed on the floor; the soft casing of the divan drawers melding against the curves of his spine.

He felt totally at ease, totally weightless, like he didn’t have to be up in two hours. Like for once, he didn’t have to worry about anything.

Changbin shuffled back through the window with the comforter wrapped around him, his foot crashing down past his window seat to land hastily on the hardwood floor. He reached up, pulling the window down to close it before yanking his curtains across, fumbling with them until most of the light was blocked out.

“Can I sleep here?” Chan asked, his voice melting into a low-pitched drone as he slumped against the bedframe.

“Your room’s literally across the hall…”

“Yeah but… I can’t… I don’t wanna.”

“Alright. You’re not sleeping in my bed though.”

“I’m just… I’m gonna sleep right here…” He murmured with a slight giggle, his eyes fluttering.

“Alright, man.” Changbin replied, wandering across to him and draping the blanket over his shoulders.

Changbin reached over and yanked his black t-shirt off over his head, tossing it aside into his hamper, and swiftly changed into a pair of black joggers from his bottom drawer. He pulled out his earrings, fumbling with the backs of them in the dark before gently placing them down next to his mirror.

He slunk into his bed, finally pulling the blankets over him, feeling the fabric under his fingertips as he nestled in. The material felt even softer than usual, so he pulled the comforter all the way up to his chin, as his eyes started to flicker shut.

“Hey, Changbin?” Chan mumbled quietly; his eyes still firmly closed.

“Yeah…?”

“Sorry I fucked up your chances of getting laid…”

“You have a habit of that.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s alright. I’m sure he’ll come crawling back anyway.”

“Don’t you ever like… Don’t you get bored of it?”

“Bored of what?”

“Like… Just the fucking around…” Chan sighed, before slumping his head further back against the bed, “I don’t know, maybe I’ve just gotten into a slump.”

“ _Bang Christopher Chan_ , in a _slump_?” Changbin replied, suddenly leaning up to prop himself on to his elbow to look across to the older man.

“Like, I don’t know. These days. Everyone’s too easy, right?”

“Yeah, easy for _you_ ,” Changbin scoffed, slumping his head back down on to the pillow, “because everyone on campus either wants to be you, or fuck you.”

“Hmm. Maybe it’s time to like… Date?”

“ _Date?_ Are you out of your mind?” Changbin laughed, shaking his head from side to side against the fabric, “why would you want to do that?”

“Well, I’m a Junior now. Don’t people say that like; forty percent of people meet their soulmate in college?” Chan stirred, looking back across to the window, still mesmerised by the remnants of the stars he could faintly make out through where the curtains had failed to meet in the middle.

“Soulmate?! The fuck? Half a joint and you’re going soft on me, Chan…” Changbin laughed.

“Come on Changbin, I’m serious...”

“And how does one find your ‘soulmate’ then? What, does your soulmate just turn up one day with a fucking handful of balloons or a cake with _‘I’m your soulmate!’_ written on it? Listen to yourself, Chan. You’re soft.”

“I mean… You dated last year,” Chan whined defensively, “and I never said shit about you _‘going soft’…”_

“We don’t talk about that.” Changbin said, cutting him off.

“I know but—"

“—Don’t let relationships and all that weigh you down, Chan, it’s too much stress.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

He sighed, closing his eyes again before staring down at his hand next to him.

“Besides, if you start dating someone, what happens to me?” Changbin asked, “though, saying that, I might be better off without you, if tonight was anything to go by...”

“Serves you right for not even learning your conquests’ _names_ …” Chan said sternly, before cranking his head back around, looking back to meet Changbin’s slightly misted gaze in the poor lighting.

They both looked at each other for a brief moment, before Chan burst out into laughter. Changbin joined in, both of them giggling to themselves until they couldn’t stop, and Chan was slumped over on the floor, unable to keep himself together, a pain growing in his ribs.

“Well, he was only like a six out of ten anyway.” Changbin chuckled, wiping at the tears that were gathering in the corners of his eyes.

Chan placed his arms down to steady himself before rising from the floor, his legs barely able to hold his weight through his wheezing. He made a shushing motion to Changbin, holding his index finger over his mouth, sauntering groggily across to the left side of Changbin’s double bed, pulling the blankets back.

“What the hell—"

“I’m getting in your bed.” He said, matter-of-factly.

“Like fuck you are…” Changbin retorted, in between coughing from his laughter.

“You gotta share it with someone once in a while, right?!” The older man said, before bursting into laughter again as he snuggled up into the blankets next to him, wiggling his toes under the material.

“Alright fine, but hurry up. I need to sleep ‘cause I’m gonna stop by the labs tomorrow.” He said, in a huff.

“You making meth, now?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Chan laughed, burying his face in to Changbin’s back as he tittered, wrapping his arms around his middle. He felt Changbin slap at his arms as his wrists made contact with the skin of his stomach, before accepting defeat and sighing at the unnecessary skinship.

He reserved, and settled in to being, essentially, Chan’s _little spoon_ for the next couple of hours before he had to be up again…

\--

He barely even remembered falling asleep, but he woke up to the sound of his phone notifications going off, a little _ping, ping, ping_. He slumped over, just one eye barely pulling open through the morning sleep, Chan’s back against his, radiating heat. He slammed his hand down against his bedside table reaching for the phone.

It was an unknown number, the guy from last night, who’s name was apparently Namkyu; Something about how Changbin would ‘regret it’, and how he ‘wouldn’t find a guy like him again’…

He had to laugh, gently tossing it back down. He had no idea how this clingy guy even got his number. It’s not like he’d forgotten giving it to him, he wasn’t even drinking last night.

“Chan…” He grumbled, tapping the older man on the shoulder, “Chan, wake up. It’s like 10:00am.”

Chan stirred for a moment, until he’d processed what he’d said. His eyes darted open instantly as he flew forward, launching the pillow he was holding on to across the room.

“10:00am?!” He repeated, “Fuck, I have to meet Hyunjin before class. We were gonna hit the pool by ten! I totally forgot!”

“Hyunjin? Your hot friend?” Changbin asked, as Chan launched himself out of the bed.

“Okay firstly, he’s like my _brother_ ,” Chan said, grimacing at the insinuation, “and secondly, he actually came over here the other day, but you were too busy hotboxing our garage to meet him...” he sighed, throwing a questionable look Changbin’s way.

“Damn, I missed the opportunity of a lifetime, huh? I’d get to hook up with someone hot, and piss you off, at the same time...”

“Pah,” Chan scoffed, patting himself down to find his phone, “Hyunjin wouldn’t go for you, Changbin,” he said, resolutely.

“Oh? And why’s that? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Chan turned back to him, staring at him with a bewildered look on his face for a few seconds, before gently shaking his head.

“Well, he has super high standards,” Chan chuckled, before finally making his way across to the mirror, checking how out-of-control his hair looked, today. He made a dash for the exit, reaching for the door handle and launching himself out of it. He ducked his head back in, giving him a little parting wave, “laters!”

“Big words coming from someone who was literally spooning me all night!” Changbin called out into the void, settling back into his bed, propped up against the headrest, sprawled out across the pillows.

He had a class today, but he’d probably skip it, anyway. He pulled his phone out, texting the unknown number back, gently laughing to himself.

_10:04am, **you :** _

_you’re totally right... i really fucked up, i’m so sorry, babe. it's totally my fault._

_i’ve been so stressed with everything going on, what with rush and classes and tutoring, my mind must’ve just been all over the place._

_How could I forget you? you’re incredible._

_maybe i could make it up to you some time? ;) xxx_

Maybe Chan was right about people being easy; it really wasn't a challenge anymore... He'd tried the whole 'dating' thing last year, and managed to royally fuck it all up after getting in a little too deep. It was a lapse, a lack of judgement, and it wouldn't happen again. 

For now, he was content with settling for this six, maybe six-and-a-half, out of ten. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY! so that's Chan and Binnie, our lil bad boys for the fic (they're acc so soft i love their friendship)
> 
> we have all our boys in the world now, let's get this thing started!  
> honestly, i have like 20 chapters planned for this, but i'm still ???? about who's going to be endgame, so we'll just see where this mess of chaotic characters takes us, I guess!
> 
> changbin lip ring and leathers when ha ha,  
> seriously though when 
> 
> thank you for reading! <3
> 
> bird app:[here](https://twitter.com/YfwbbS) :)


	4. Challenger

🐱

“So, for my first big project, we have to write a minute-thirty arrangement that _‘represents our sound’_ …” Jisung said, rolling his eyes, “It’s the first production for the class and the theme is just _‘love’_... Such an awful concept…” Jisung groaned, slinking further back into his chair. He tapped his pen against the side of the notebook, creating a beat against its’ spine.

“Sung, you’ve written like twenty thousand songs in your lifetime and they’ve all been great…” Minho responded next to him, resting his hand against his own face lethargically as he scanned over his ginormous textbook on the desk.

“ _Making the song_ is fine; I’m probably just going to use one of my premade songs… It’s just… We have to write… _Lyrics_ …” He grumbled.

“Just write whatever comes to you. Write from the heart,” Felix said, smiling from across the study hall table.

“It’s hard to write from the heart when you’re me...” Jisung groaned, placing the pen down next to his overly-sprawled-across notepad and running his hands through his hair in exasperation.

“Why’s that?” Felix asked.

“Well, look at me, I’m 18, I’ve never even been with someone let alone _in love_ with someone…” he started, rubbing his fingertips over his eyelids, “I’ve barely even kissed anyone. How can I write about shit I haven’t even _experienced_...?”

“I mean, we’re all in the same boat, Jisung. You don’t have to write love songs about _people_! Maybe you should write a list of things you’re interested in, or something, to inspire you!” Felix responded joyfully, cheering him on from across the table.

“Sure, Felix, things I love… Hmm, let’s see...”

He pulled a page out of his notebook, dramatically scratching his head with the blunt end of his pen before scribbling;

“Vanilla cheesecake, _Howl’s Moving Castle_ , sitting by myself eating _Pepero_ , dreaming about having someone to cure my crippling loneliness…”

“You’re so melodramatic…” Minho scoffed, shaking his head, “besides, you forgot the most important thing you love…” He leant across, snatching the pen out of Jisung’s right hand with his left, and proceeding to angle himself awkwardly over the table to write; _Minho!_

Jisung grabbed at his sleeve, playfully pulling at his white cardigan as he sulked against the older man’s arm, resting his head against his bicep, huffing and puffing.

“I mean… It’s been like three weeks and I haven’t done anything exciting since I enrolled here. I thought college was meant to be like… Partying and having fun and finding someone, you know.”

“And… Studying… To better yourself…?” Minho added, cocking an eyebrow. Jisung leant away from his arm, looking at him before throwing his head back sulkily.

“Uuuugh, yeah, yeah...”

“It’s okay Jisung! Someone comes along for all of us,” Felix said, smiling. “Don’t you think?”

“I guess.”

“And what about Hyunjin?” Felix asked, his eyes sparkling at the concept.

“What about him?”

“I mean, he’s seems nice, he lives in our dorm, you two seem to get along well? You said he’s in your English class?”

“Hyunjin? The long-haired guy, right?” Minho added.

“Yeah but, come on Felix, there’s no way. Whenever I see him, I’m too embarrassed to even speak to him. Every time I start a conversation with him, I just end up babbling...” he sighed, scribbling over the words in his notebook, “besides, he’s never at our dorm, he’s always at that frat house off campus with a bunch of older guys. I’m sure wouldn’t be interested in someone like me, he’s so far out of my league. In fact, I don’t even _have_ a league, to begin with...”

“Never know until you try!” Felix said, stretching across and resting a reassuring hand on his arm, “or, Minho, you must have some nice guys in some of your classes for Jisung, right? Someone? Anyone?”

“Uh…”

“Felix, I appreciate the gesture, but all it’s doing is reminding me how hideously lonely I am…” Jisung laughed, noticing Minho’s awkward grimace that he always did before he spoke again.

“Jisung, your problem is, you’ve seen too many movies. You think some kindred spirit is just going to fall into your lap. That’s not what college is about; it’s not like that here… Romance is kind of off the cards, trust me,” Minho said, looking back down to his book nonchalantly, reaching for his coffee to take a sip.

“Trust you? I mean that’s easy for _you_ to say Minho... You could have anyone you wanted if you actually tried… You look like some dumb model or something.”

“That’s so untrue...” Minho scoffed.

“Oh, come on, everyone wanted you in high school. If you tried you could find yourself someone but you just, don’t care enough, to.”

“Never mind. Can we stop talking about this anyway? Can we just focus…? I’m trying to study here,” Minho responded, slight irritation in his tone, “I have a test next week and I have to learn about the parasympathetic nervous system...”

“Fine, here, let me help,” Jisung said, snatching the book across from him. “Okay, first question…”

He closed his eyes, spinning and wriggling his right index finger around in the air before prodding the book abruptly, opening one eye to check what he’d stumbled upon. “How many… Instrissi… In—Instrinctive—

“— _Intrinsic_?” Minho interrupted with a breathy laugh.

“How many… of _that_ , eye muscles are there?

“Six… There’s six extraocular muscles in the orbit, inferior, medial, lateral and superior rectus, and, um, superior and inferior oblique…”

“I don’t know what twelve of those words mean!” Jisung said, feigning interest, his eyes comedically wide as he rested his hands playfully on his palms, blinking rapidly at Minho through big doe eyes.

“Well, ‘six’ is a number, for a start...” Minho responded, smiling with all his teeth on show and cocking his head to the side.

“Very funny, Min. Okay, what about…” He trailed off, picking another random page and pointing at it.

“Look, it’s him!” Felix cut them off, frantically tapping Jisung on the shoulder. Jisung looked across to the main entrance to see what he was gesturing at, the air escaping his lungs.

 _Hyunjin_ had entered the student centre, carrying his beige, crossbody, tote-material bag over him, gripping on to an iced coffee in a little rustic, reusable coffee mug. He was wearing this kind of dumb, brown cardigan that was hugely oversized, but it just… Worked.

Even the way he walked just demanded attention, and Jisung could have sworn the _sun started shining_ through the windowed wall of the hall, as soon as entered. The light beam shining off of his razor-sharp profile, like he was some kind of otherworldly being, or something. 

“Holy shit...” Jisung said, mouth falling open, “He’s so… Just, ugh...” Jisung melted back down into his chair, dropping down as he mused. Minho looked towards him, probably sighing at how pathetic he must’ve looked.

Jisung almost thought it looked like Hyunjin was walking directly towards _him,_ in slow motion, like some scene from a movie. The delicate bounce of his cute little ponytail as he walked, his other hand slumped carelessly into his cardigan pocket… Everything he did just looked so _effortless._

He watched as he wandered in a straight line down the middle of the room, more of his ethereal details coming into light. His tiny, gold hoop earring, that cute little mole he had under his eye…

 _Wait_ , Jisung thought, he actually _was_ walking directly towards him... And did he just say ‘ _Jisung’_?

“Hey, Jisung, right, from English?” The taller man said, placing his hand down on the back of an empty chair opposite of him across the table next to Felix.

Jisung stumbled up from his slumped position, nodding frantically.

“Uh, yeah! That’s me, Jisung. Jisung, is—Yeah, Jisung is what my parents called me... When I was born…” He stumbled, totally hoping that he hadn’t drooled whilst he was watching the man saunter over, dabbing his mouth, just in case.

“Hoodie guy!” Hyunjin said, smiling warmly.

“Hood—W-What?”

“That’s what we call you, Seungmin and I, cause of that first day, remember? In the first lecture? You came in and that teacher made you take your hat off? You were wearing that khaki hoodie that you’re wearing now.”

Jisung stuttered; he’d tried to forget that horrifically awkward encounter…

“Uh, yeah. I guess... Uh, I just— Maybe it just slipped my mind. I don’t _always_ wear this hoodie, though! It just so happens that I was wearing it then, and now I’m wearing it again... And I wore it last English class, but I mean… I wash it! Like, frequently, actually! And… I— You know?”

“Uh… Sure. Anyway, can we borrow these chairs you’re not using, here?” He rattled two of the chairs in his hands.

“We?” Jisung asked.

Suddenly, he heard a jostling, as a group of guys busted through the swinging doors, about seven or eight of them, all drawing attention to themselves as everyone studying looked up to see what the sudden commotion was about. The librarian lady gave them an apprehensive look, as did plenty of the other students.

Jisung’s eyes widened, he did recognize two of them. One as the _famous_ Chan; black cap on with brown curls peeking out and a white muscle shirt. Seungmin from his English class, too in a navy button-up style shirt and grey pants. There were a couple of other boys, too, presumably other housemates from the frat house that he was constantly invited to. They didn’t tend to hang out in the student areas.

“Jisung?”

“Uh? Sorry?” He responded, snapping out of his daze.

“Can we… Borrow those chairs? Is that okay?” Hyunjin asked politely.

“Oh, sure! Yes! I mean, they’re not mine, I don’t own them, or anything, so don’t worry about bringing them back, I guess. I mean—Like, they were just here when we got here and there’s only three of us so of course we don’t need the other three—I mean, they’re school property I guess so! Yeah, that’s totally fine!”

His embarrassing word vomit was immediately interrupted by Minho gripping the skin of his forearm tightly in between his index finger and thumb. Hyunjin just stared at him as Jisung winced from the pinch, head tilted slightly to the side, giving him a _slow nod…_

Hyunjin grabbed two of the chairs, sliding them across towards the gaggle of men that were entering the hall, Chan giving him an ‘over here’ kind of signal, by flicking his head in their direction, and Seungmin waving fondly at him, too.

They waited a few moments for the other man to be out of ear shot, before Minho let out a chuckle, removing his round spectacles and tossing them down flat on the table in front of him before covering up his face with his hands and laughing into them. Felix joined in, unable to bite his lip at the embarrassing display...

“For fucks sake…” Jisung said, exhaling, slumping his head down into his outstretched arms thrown across the table.

“So, that’s your game plan is it?! You _hopeless romantic_ , you!” Minho laughed, “tell him that you _do in fact_ , wash your clothes, and let him borrow as many chairs as he likes?!”

“Oh Jisung, it’s okay! You’ll get him next time?” Felix tried to reassure him, gritting his teeth and patting his elbow.

“Can we just focus… I’m trying to study here…” Jisung said, pulling his textbook over his head as Minho and Felix tried their hardest to stifle their laughter.

A low rumble echoed throughout the room, all of the students who were quietly studying and chatting among themselves turned to look out of the bay window into the parking lot, where a guy had pulled up on his motorbike, his wheels screeching to a halt.

Jisung had seen him before, but he didn’t know a lot about him. He was quite elusive, and he was also sure guy was some kind of drug dealer, or something, maybe.

“Oooh, it’s the bike guy,” Felix said, peeking his head around like some little meercat.

Jisung could hear the students start murmuring, there was an immediate hum in the air. Some of the others looked a little startled, and a few of them even got up and _left_. Jisung looked around, noticing the fear on some of the students faces. He wondered if this guy was really as bad as people made him out to be…

“Shit, I just realised, I gotta go. I—I’ll have to study later. I forgot I had to get to the labs,” Minho said, immediately pulling back in his chair. He scooped his books up into his arms, blowing his bangs out of the corner of his mouth, flipping them backwards out of his face.

“What for?” Jisung asked, eyes flicking back to him.

“Oh just, something for… I have… A thing I told my Professor I’d do. Anyway, I’ll see you guys tomorrow night, okay?”

“We can walk you back to _Lear_ if you want, Minho? We should probably head off now anyway if we’re gonna get any snacks for film night... If Jisung can peel himself away from staring at Hyunjin…” Felix lovingly teased, reaching out and poking his cheek across the table.

“Hey…” he groaned, “but yeah, probably a good shout, though,” Jisung confirmed, nodding in Felix’s direction. “Felix and I were gonna watch an animated movie in our room if you wanna stop by after?”

“Maybe, I’ll have to see. Laters.”

🐶

“Well, Dowoon can handle food, I’m gonna speak to the RA’s and see what I can do about keeping this on the hush, Bam’s handling music and spirits…” Chan reeled off, reading a list from his phone as the rest of the boys flicked little balls of paper at each other across the table.

It made Hyunjin cringe at how immature they were, considering they were a year, some of them two years, older. Hyunjin pulled the chairs across from the walk from Hoodie guy’s table, scraping them across the ground. One for Seungmin, who was awkwardly perched against the table, totally out of his comfort zone, and one for himself.

“And what about the noise complaints, this time? They’re not gonna let it slide again, Channie—” One of the boys said.

“—We should get Changbin to get arrested again, that’ll distract them…” another one said, laughing in tandem.

“Who’s getting arrested?” Hyunjin asked, slumping down into his chair.

“Speaking of…” Chan said, prodding his head up to the window to see someone hurtling down the parking lot on a motorbike, his wheels shrieking loud enough for the rest of the students to hear it through the thickened glass, “Wow, only half an hour late to meet us,” he said, shaking his head.

A few moments of idle chit chat later, and the guy from the bike was walking into the student hall. He noticed how the other kids reacted as he peered around at the whisperers; like they were scared of him, which was funny to Hyunjin, because he was, kind of minuscule.

The man waltzed over to their table, unzipping his jacket. His hair was tousled and his face slightly reddened at the side from where he’d been wearing his helmet. He was short, but kind of stacked; he obviously went to the gym with Chan. Hyunjin figured his frame was probably compensating for his lack of height, or something else.

Hyunjin immediately noticed the glint of a little, gunmetal-colored ring prodding out of his mouth.

“Seungmin, Hyunjin, this is Changbin... He’s our _mysterious_ fifth housemate…” Chan said, standing to attention and slapping a hand down against his leathered shoulder.

“Oh, hey.” Seungmin said, putting his hand out.

“Alright? Yeah, sorry. Chan’s mentioned you guys. I’ve just been busy, you know how it is,” Changbin said, smirking.

Chan rolled his eyes, looking back to his phone and dropping back into his chair. One of the other guys immediately gave up his chair for this pint-sized felon, and Hyunjin wondered if he should have done the same considering he was a freshman.

He couldn’t help but stare at the guy as he settled into conversation - Barely making any, in fact, too distracted by his phone.

Hyunjin had met this kind of guy before, there were tons of them at high school. The kind of guys who acted like they didn’t give a shit about anyone but ended being the most sensitive of blossoms on the planet. This dude was exuberating it, and it wasn’t even subtle.

Hyunjin wondered how Chan and this guy had even become friends in the first place. Chan, although a bit of a party boy, didn’t tend to make friends with _delinquents_ ; his Mom would never allow it, he came from a pretty affluent background. This guy, was the _pinnacle_ of one, Hyunjin thought.

“Nice to, finally meet you, Hyunjin, isn’t it? You’re Chan’s… Mom’s, friends’, kid? Isn’t that it?” Changbin said as he laughed over the jumbled words, finally dumping his helmet he’d been holding down on the table with a _thump_ in front of him.

“You know me, huh?” Hyunjin asked, sipping on his coffee casually, cocking an eyebrow.

“Of course, he does Jin, everyone knows about you here,” Chan said, “you were one of us before you were even one of us,” Chan scoffed, and Hyunjin knew it was true.

“Seo Changbin.” The guy said, pulling the chair towards Hyunjin’s side and manspreading across it like he’d never been shown how to use a chair like a human, before.

“What brings you to the study hall, Changbin? I didn’t even know that word was in your vocabulary...” Bambam joked, slapping him on the back.

“Chan said you guys were here, so I thought I’d stop by, grace you with my presence...” He joked, looking towards Hyunjin again, a look in his eye that Hyunjin interpreted as his ‘mating call’ face. Hyunjin couldn’t help but scoff.

The guy _unashamedly_ stared at him for a few moments, then he looked back to Seungmin acting like he wasn’t even there. He’d ignored shaking Seungmin’s hand earlier too, probably to look like he didn’t really care for introductions. His gaze kept falling, trickling back to Hyunjin, and Hyunjin wasn’t afraid to stare back, and that only seemed to egg him on, more.

“I have a tutoring session at 6:00pm so I have to get going, guys,” Chan said, after ten or so minutes of chit-chat. Hyunjin had learnt by now that any time with Chan was only temporary, here.

“Is this a tutoring session or a… _Tutoring session_ …” Bambam replied, nudging him with his elbow suggestively.

“Bam, it’s proper tutoring. Besides, I’ll have you know I’m trying to be better… Kind of sucks though, it’s getting boring. I haven’t got laid since school started...” Chan groaned.

“School started 3 weeks ago, Chris…”

“Yeah, exactly!”

“Chan’s convinced he’s going to run in to his little soulmate, or some bullshit like that,” Changbin joked, and Hyunjin noticed as the tips of Chan’s ears changed color, slightly reddened.

“Fuck off, that’s not true!” He said, trying to defend himself, “anyway, I’ve decided the whole soulmate thing was just a blip. I’m getting laid at the party, no questions asked,” Chan confirmed, and all of the other guys all laughed along with him.

Hyunjin had found himself slowly declining throughout the conversation, considering he thought he’d come here to study. Listening to Chan’s friends, although generally harmless, was pretty exhausting. They were _kind of_ a bunch of meatheads, not that Hyunjin particularly minded. At least he didn’t have to try and make conversation, as most of them wouldn’t let him get a word in even if he tried.

He was content with just nodding along, scribbling in his sketchbook.

“What’s up with you?” Seungmin asked a dozy Hyunjin quietly, nudging his shoulder with his own.

“Nothing. Jeongin was just playing music really loudly last night so I barely got any sleep, and I had a class at 8:00am. It’s insane, no one even says anything to him.”

“No one says anything, because Jeongin’s the Dean of Humanities’ kid.” Chan responded, cutting into the conversation.

“What?” Hyunjin and Seungmin both shouted in chorus, eyes darting open at the revelation. They looked at each other, eyes as wide as saucers. 

“Didn’t you know? Yeah, he’s one of the kids I coach, too. I’ve tutored him since he was like 14. How else do you think I got you that room?” Chan laughed, throwing his duffle bag, likely containing his gym stuff, over his shoulder.

“Well, shit...”

“I’m gonna head off too, Hyunjin. You coming back to the dorm?” Seungmin asked, rising from his chair with a questionable eyebrow raise; Hyunjin could tell it was a call for help.

“Yeah. Sure thing.”

“Wait,” Changbin suddenly said, “isn’t there a party tonight, at _Roma_?” he asked, looking Chan’s direction for confirmation.

“Oh, shit, yeah. I totally forgot. I was probably gonna miss it. You’re going?” Chan asked Changbin.

“Tell you what… I’ll go, if you guys do…” He said, boldly looking at Hyunjin.

It almost felt like a standoff; like a way of checking if Hyunjin was up to his standard of debauchery and general tom-fuckery. Hyunjin didn’t want to take the bait, but something inside of him jumped at the idea that this guy really wanted to challenge him like that, so boldly.

“Dude, I have tutoring today…” Chan groaned, resting his hand on Changbin’s shoulder.

“Come on, few drinks?” Changbin said, smirking, “Sounds like… You’re being a little bitch, Channie…”

“Fuck you…”

The guys around him pulled themselves to their feet and started _clucking_ at him, before a chant of ‘chicken, chicken!’ sounded throughout the hall. Hyunjin was totally mortified, glancing around at the distant librarian in the back of the hall, making a cut-throat gesture as if to say, _I’m not with them_ …

He could tell it was going to be a long night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, i know this was super long! just wanted some basic friendshippery before i start the drama! you know how it is!!! i'm also not particularly happy with the pacing of this, but it's TOOOO LATE NOW 
> 
> https://twitter.com/YfwbbS <3
> 
> \+ yes!!! i am back on my catboy/dogboy bullshit!!!!! and what!!!!


	5. Polygon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw // recreational drug use

🐶

Hyunjin looked around the place, scanning from each corner to the next, looking at the badly painted Roman columns and pillars. He grimaced, looking at the other students who were wrapped in make-shift togas and loose, white dresses and golden sandals.

Hyunjin hadn’t quite realised that _Roma_ was a _Roman Empire-themed bar_ , a short distance from campus. It made perfect sense in hindsight, but Hyunjin had spectacularly failed to adopt the dress code. He’d appeared in a pair of tight-fitting black jeans and an oversized forest-green, cashmere sweater, tucked in only at the front and covered by a long black cardigan.

It could have made him self-conscious, if he actually gave a shit about what people thought of him.

Considering Changbin, Dowoon, Bambam and Chan had been here before, they _also_ hadn’t dressed up, which didn’t quite seem right; suspicious, even.

He lingered in the corner of the room, watching the security guard at the door, eagle-eyed. He was clearly only there to ensure that no one underage was drinking. There were some other students dancing on the makeshift dancefloor to totally non historically-relevant pop music, as strobe lights and lasers flickered in to his eyes…

Hyunjin groaned, spinning his _gladius sword-shaped stirrer_ in his glass of _virgin_ mojito, slumping back down into his chair with fake foliage wrapped around it.

Changbin, Chan’s unnecessarily-aggressive-for-his-height friend, was wrapped around the chair next to him, straddling it as he typed on his phone over the back of it. It was honestly ludicrous, how he’d managed to stick to Hyunjin for nearly forty minutes. Either that, or he just wasn’t particularly sociable, either.

“Are you gonna keep staring me, all night?” Changbin suddenly asked, not looking up from his phone.

“Ex-excuse me?” Hyunjin said, stumbling out of his daze.

He hadn’t even realised he _was_ staring. In fact, maybe he hadn’t even been, and it was wishful thinking on Changbin’s part.

“I don’t blame you,” the older man said, suddenly glancing over to him, eyes lidded, with an arrogant grin wrenching at his lips.

“I’m not, I’m just thinking how totally boring this is…” Hyunjin responded nonchalantly, ensuring he absolutely did not give him eye contact.

“Wait, you don’t think we’re actually _staying_ here, do you?” Changbin chuckled.

Chan appeared mid conversation, shortly after having been hanging out with a bunch of other Juniors and Seniors at the bar, who _were_ able to drink. He threw his hand on the back of either of their chairs, summoning them to stand up.

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin asked, looking between the two of them, a little taken aback.

“ _Roma_ ’s a campus-officiated venue, you don’t think we’d party here?” Changbin laughed, “We’re going out, out, way far off campus. Why’d you think we didn’t dress up like the rest of these idiots?”

“Right. We’ve shown our faces. I’ll get my shit, hold up,” Chan interrupted, ducking his head in between them before scooting off back towards the bar to retrieve his jacket, a smug grin across his face and a suggestive eyebrow raise in Hyunjin’s direction as he went.

“I mean… I’m… I don’t have a fake ID or anything, if that’s what you mean,” Hyunjin said, leaning towards Changbin, who’d risen from his chair and slid his phone in to his pocket.

“You won’t need it,” Changbin said, “you’re hot, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m—”

“—Maybe drop the cardigan, though. We’re trying to look like we’re twenty-one, not forty-five…” Changbin scoffed, pulling his black denim jacket off and dumping it down on the chair beside him. It was quickly replaced by his regular leather bike jacket, sliding over his arms as he shimmied in to it.

“Whatever…” Hyunjin replied, rolling his eyes at him.

He looked away, trying to hide the fact that his eyes immediately skimmed down to Changbin’s arms as they were unveiled. He didn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of knowing he pulled any kind of focus; it was _purely_ instinctive; it wasn’t like he actually found this ignoramus attractive.

“You know I’m older than you, right?” Changbin said, suddenly sounding a little sterner than before.

“Yeah, by like, one year, what’s your point…?”

Changbin stared at him and squinted his eyes a little, his tongue flicking to the left in annoyance.

“Kinda disrespectful to talk to me like that considering you’re younger?”

“The way you’ve been looking at me since we first met, I’m sure _respect_ is the last thing on your mind…”

“Pah. What’s this?” Changbin scoffed, “Chan leaves the area for _two seconds_ and you’re suddenly full of it?”

“Channie is one of my best friends, I wouldn’t be disrespectful around him. But trust me, your obnoxious forwardness doesn’t intimidate me, if that’s what you think,” Hyunjin said, flashing him a closed-eye, cynical smile before placing his mocktail back down on the table.

Changbin gawked at him, speechless for a few seconds, until he started obnoxiously _clapping his hands_ together in a slow rhythm. Hyunjin could feel his sarcastic gaze boring a hole in to his head before the older man let out a breathy laugh.

“Well, fuck me… Pretty boy has some kind of backbone, huh? And here’s me thinking you were scared of me,” Changbin laughed, shaking his head.

“I’m not scared of anything, so do your worst.”

“Is that so? Well, Hyunjin, ever been on the back of a motorbike?” The older man said, moving a little closer towards him.

“Aren’t you drinking?” Hyunjin retorted, with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, not yet, but I will be, duh. I’ll leave my bike. There’s an apartment complex next to the place we’re going, I know a guy who’ll look after it for me.”

“ _Uber_ ’s here, let’s get going, guys!” Chan interrupted, summoning the others from across the room and ushering them towards the direction of the door.

“Actually, Chan. Hyunjin, here, said he wants to ride on the back of my bike, what’dyou think?” Changbin teased, prodding him in the side.

“Not a fucking chance in hell,” Chan said, pushing Hyunjin by the back through the door and towards the cab that was waiting for them.

🐱

“Okay, do you want to watch The _Haruhi Suzumiya_ movie, or _Princess Kaguya_ or have you got something else in mind?” Felix asked graciously, staring down at the selection.

Felix held the two discs in his hand, both poorly-ripped MP4’s created on Jisung’s 2009, barely-holding-on, pink laptop. Felix smiled softly at them; it reminded him of being back at home, listening to listening to mid-2000’s pop hits in his Mom’s charming, little, blue _Beetle_ as they drove along a main road in the sunshine, swimming in beachy air.

He wishfully sighed, looking towards his new friend, Jisung, who was cutely slumped against one of his fluffy cushions in the corner against the wall, sound asleep. He was softly snoring like a little bear and Felix thought he looked sweet when he was a slightly bloated, post _Pepero._

“Jisung?” Felix asked quietly, softly tapping his arm.

He didn’t _actually_ want to wake him. In fact, Jisung was probably a bit more into anime than he was, so he wasn’t that phased, but he was undoubtedly trying super-duper hard to impress him. He wanted to try and find common ground with his new roommate and this seemed like an easy in.

Felix wandered across to their shared desk, which Jisung had pretty much inherited. Felix didn’t mind, most of Jisung’s work was desk based, and he had his mixer and midi keyboard on it for his music. He’d had bought a smaller, white nightstand to put his own computer on, having to forego his regular two monitors, but he figured he had to make sacrifices sometimes for the sake of friendship.

Felix studied culinary arts, and aside from researching different culture’s techniques and the mass of nutritional information he had to read every day, it was fairly practical, so he knew Jisung needed the space more than he did.

Felix liked the practicality of his course; he was a hands-on learner.

He looked over Jisung’s notes, sprawls upon sprawls of crossed-through lyrics, dreamy anecdotes, and short reflective sentences. Felix read through some of them and thought they were wonderful. From what he knew of Jisung, which was admittedly, not a lot; he was a talented person.

It was a shame that he didn’t see it that way.

Felix gleamed to himself, he was glad he’d found a friend here, so easily, _two_ in fact, if he considered Minho a friend? He sure hoped Minho considered _him_ , one, anyway!

He knew he could also be kind of shy, and even in his culinary classes he did tend to keep to himself. He was conscious of everything, the way he spoke, the way he acted. If he was being too full-on, too cutesy, too much. It did worry him, sometimes.

On top of it all, he was homesick. He’d been homesick for a long time. He missed his sister, and his Mom, a lot.

He walked across, pulling his purpled, starry blanket over Jisung, tucking him in snugly around the edges, patting him in with his hands. Jisung barely roused, it was only 9:00pm, so Felix decided to call his Mom on Skype instead, as little sparkly tears starting to form in the inner corner of his eyes.

🐶

Hyunjin found himself tensing up as he saw the burly doorman checking ID’s at the entrance of the club venue; it was called ‘ _Polygon’_ , which made him internally cringe as soon as he read it. Hyunjin turned around to Chan, immediately hesitant, grabbing on to his forearm warily.

“Channie…”

“Don’t worry, I know people. You’ll get in,” Chan reassured him, squeezing his hand that lay flat across his arm.

Hyunjin trusted Chan with his life, and he didn’t want to look nervous in front of his housemates either, so he bit his tongue and exhaled, puffing his chest out to make himself look _larger_. Luckily, he might’ve been younger, but he actually was significantly taller than most of the guys he was with… Good genes, afterall.

Chan slapped his hand in to the doorman’s hand, shunting his shoulder against his, as they jovially spoke for a few seconds outside the door. It only took about two minutes of chatter before Chan whispered something into his ear and the guy eyed Hyunjin up behind him.

Hyunjin was sure he’d probably slipped him some kind of bill during the handshake, too.

Chan was crafty, cunning; he really looked up to him.

The guy shot him the flash of a nod, as he sauntered in through the door into the club behind the other guys, acting like he was totally unphased by it all. He realised that Chan already knew a few people here, by the way people were reacting to him and welcoming him.

The vibe was totally different from that shitty toga party. EDM music vibrating the sticky, hardwood floors and blue and purple LED’s illuminating the entire place. There was a black, marbled bar taking up most of the left-hand side of the room, and mirrored walls laced the open-plan dance floor on the other side.

Hyunjin looked around, noticing how mirrors _seeped_ with condensation; it was like a sweatbox in here, likely due to the sheer number of writhing bodies, across the dancefloor.

It was probably the grimiest looking place Hyunjin had ever stepped in to, but weirdly, he kind of liked it... It was exhilarating, almost.

They inhabited a small, metal table next to the main bar; sans fake foliage, this time.

The cheap bottle of watery champagne in the middle of it in an ice bucket was quickly consumed via ‘strawpedo’ by Bambam, and it didn’t take long before the second and third round of shots were coming out.

Hyunjin chewed his way through vodka, soju and tequila, trying his best to hold his own. The guys were only one or two years older than him at most, so he couldn’t look weak or out-of-place here. It wasn’t his first time at the rodeo drinking wise, but a proper club like this was definitely way out of his comfort zone.

Hyunjin clung to Chan for most of the night, just trying to regain some sense of familiarity as the alcohol swept through his veins. Chan was a party boy, but he was a sensible party boy, if that made any kind of tangible sense. He could see it in his face that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.

As soon as Chan left to go to the bar for more rounds, he was always _strategically_ left with just _Changbin_ by the other boys, as they all ambled off to the dance floor.

It was so transparent.

“You look like a fish out of water,” Changbin chuckled, leaning in towards him across the table, spinning the ball glass in his hand.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I guess cafes, art galleries and playhouses are more your style, huh?” He scoffed.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, knocking another shot of soju straight down his gullet and resting his cheek against his palm, careful not to prop his elbow into any sticky substances on the table.

“I do drink, you know. I guess I’m just not used to how cramped and gross these places are.”

“Come outside then, you do look like you need air,” Changbin said to him, rising to his feet and patting himself down.

“I-I mean, I’m fine, really.”

Changbin clutched his hand, suddenly pulling him to his feet out of the chair, their chests weirdly close as he looked down at him. It was tense for a moment, before he saw a smile start to creep across the man’s face.

He tried to ignore Bambam sticking his tongue out in their general direction as he held his glass up towards them from the dance floor. He allowed himself to be pulled outside past a whole host of sweaty people, into the smoking area out the back of the venue, figuring there was no point in arguing.

Plus, as irritating as Changbin was, he definitely was right; he really did need some air.

It was cooling, and the breeze was so refreshing on his skin compared to the nauseating heat inside. There were around twenty people scattered outside under the awnings and sitting at a few wooden tables, smoking together whilst gossiping.

Everyone out here looked considerably older than him, and it made him uneasy as eyes cast over him, looking him up and down. He put on his regular ‘brave face’, feigning that it didn’t bother him, the way the older people looked at him like he was some spicy little side dish.

They settled in the corner propped up against the stone wall, fairly out of sight, and it allowed him to have a moment just to relax his shoulders and breathe uninterrupted.

“It’s nice out,” Changbin said, cutting the tension.

“Did you really bring me out here to make small talk with me?”

“Nah, that’s not why I came out here.”

Changbin reached behind him into his back pocket and pulled out small bronze tin, opening it to pick up a pre-rolled spliff, before tapping the bottom against the metal container, “If you don’t mind, pretty boy. I know how boring your type can be.”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Hyunjin asked.

“Just because you’re uptight doesn’t mean—"

“—No, I mean, you’re going to invite me out here and _not_ invite me to smoke with you?” Hyunjin said, slightly offended.

Changbin cocked his head to the side.

“You partake?”

“Of course.”

“Wow... You’re full of surprises, pretty boy...”

“Pot helps me draw a lot of the time. Just, don’t tell Chan, I won’t hear the end of it…” He whispered, leaning in a little; a slightly more enticingly than he’d wished for.

“So, it’s our little secret, then?” Changbin said, and the sensual intonation that he retaliated with sent a rush through Hyunjin’s veins as he watched the older man twist his lip ring with his lower teeth.

They made their way further out, behind the smoking area towards a large, probably six-foot tall gate with a chained padlock wrapped around it. Changbin nodded at some guy in a navy polo shirt, who came and unlocked it for him, and they slipped through it into the alley behind, to some glamorous dumpsters, of all things…

Hyunjin glanced back to the security guy as they passed through, who _winked at him_.

Changbin must do this a lot, he thought.

There was no one around, and only the dull thump of the bass from the club could be heard. He was totally in Changbin’s playbook out here, and he wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about it. He knew Chan wouldn’t be friends with some psycho, let alone live in a house with him, so he figured he was probably at least _safe._

As well as that, some weird part of him almost enjoyed the thrill in a way that he couldn’t explain. Changbin wouldn’t be the first self-confessed ‘bad boy’ that had fallen for him, and he probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

The older man pulled his _Zippo_ out, flicking the cap back and sparking up, quickly inhaling a few times to keep it alight. Hyunjin stared at him, watching the way his lips looked when they were puckered. It was weirdly intriguing, but Hyunjin put it down to the alcohol clouding his judgement; his vision was slightly delayed.

“Two toke,” Changbin said, and Hyunjin accepted it into his fingers. He felt suddenly awfully scrutinized as Changbin watched him bring it to his mouth and take a deep inhale. It burnt a little, but he swallowed down any signs that he couldn’t handle it.

Changbin smirked, taking it back from him, and then sucking in a couple of deeper inhales. They passed it between them for a while, slipping into an oddly comfortable silence, a wave of contentment washing through him as he felt his heartrate settle down.

They were nearly all out, and as Hyunjin got towards the end of it, he grimaced slightly at the taste, looking back to Changbin who was still observing him.

“I don’t really smoke with tobacco much, I’d prefer, like, a pipe, I guess. More intense…” Hyunjin added with feigned confidence, looking back down to him.

“Oh, really? More intense?” The older man said, and Hyunjin wondered if what he’d said had actually sounded as mature in real life as it did in his own head.

It went silent again for a moment, as Changbin took his last few inhales. For some reason, he held on to his last one as he gazed at him, half lidded.

The older man leant across, placing his hand firmly around the base of Hyunjin’s neck and pulled him in towards him, pressing his mouth to the younger mans’. He immediately parted his lips with some power, and angled himself, to allow himself to slowly _exhale the smoke into Hyunjin’s mouth_.

After a fleeting few second of sheer shock, some of it billowed out of the corners before he managed to inhale the rest, pushed up against Changbin’s lips.

He conceded; relaxing and creating a seal between them to draw the remainder of the smoke out before separating them both with a hand against his chest. He breathed out again, releasing it finely back into the air around them.

He stared into the older man’s eyes, dazed and slightly pinkened, watching him re-adjusted his lip ring with his _tongue_ , this time.

“You know, you should have probably checked I was okay with that, before you did it…” Hyunjin choked out, still gawking in shock.

“Sharing is caring, right?” Changbin said, gnawing at the side of his lip, not once faltering.

“I’ve met you once.”

“And aren’t you glad you did?” He teased.

Changbin immediately wrapped his hand around Hyunjin’s neck again, moving back in to crush their lips together, angling his face with the pad of his thumb.

It was irrefutably hot, and Hyunjin was internally barking at himself to not fall for the ridiculous little game that Changbin had no doubt probably won ten times over.

He figured one kiss was fine, he knew when to stop; if anything, he’d rather enjoy playing Changbin at his own game.

The trouble was, he _was_ under the influence, and Changbin’s mouth felt two parts soft as silk, and one part hot as hell, and the metal slowly caressing his lower lip felt like nothing he’d experienced before, their lips colliding against each other’s, increasingly frantically.

His mind started drifting, wandering out to the depths of his unconscious thoughts; feelings filling his head; about how it would feel, the cold twang of the stainless-steel ring dragging across his body.

He felt one of Changbin’s hands slide across the small of his back, forcing them closer and closer together until their hips were flush. The other hand wandered audaciously from his waist down to his ass and _squeezed_ , with _zero_ room for tact. The older man pulled back a moment, almost breathing into his mouth.

“That apartment I spoke about earlier, where I leave my bike?” Changbin said, pulling back and pointing across the road to a large apartment complex towards the top of the road, “I own it. Come back with me?”

“You—You own it?” Hyunjin stammered out.

“Well, my family own it. The suite up top we don’t rent out, that’s reserved for me, only…” Changbin moaned smugly, his voice low and laced with arrogance in a way that Hyunjin hated. Changbin probably considered him a lamb to slaughter, the man in front of him _panting_ ; ready to devour him, ready to win him like some prize.

Little did Changbin know, Hyunjin wasn’t about to lose this game, now.

The younger man pushed him backwards, almost choking out a broken laugh; he wasn’t sure if it were shock, due to the audacity of someone he’d just met trying it on so outrageously and brazenly, or the nervous tingle in his chest, the way it was rising and falling like an ocean tide through the amount of shit he’d put into his body tonight…

He could feel his heartbeat throbbing out of his chest through how heightened all his senses were, it was a little overwhelming.

“I’m… I’m going to find Chan, inside. I need to dance, or something.”

“Woah, woah, wait up—” Changbin said, gripping on to his wrist and pulling him back around, “don’t go in on your own, you’re kinda high.”

“Nice of you to notice that _before_ you kissed me and tried to take me back to Daddy’s apartment,” he spat, “and don’t tell Chan you just kissed me, either, or you’ll really regret it.”

“Don’t tell Chan I kissed you? Or, don’t tell Chan you kissed me back?” Changbin laughed, as Hyunjin shrugged his hand out of his grip.

“You know what I mean, just forget about it.”

“Whatever, pretty boy.”

🐱

It was past 2:00am, and post Skype-call to his family, Felix had managed to get changed into his navy, silky pyjama set and watch some episodes of _Brooklyn 99_ as well as get some of his nutritional studies exercises on biological contaminants, completed.

Felix liked to stay up late, it was a cosy time where he could relax and be alone with himself in the quiet.

Sometimes he’d watch some Korean films to help him learn whilst he enjoyed them, and other times he’d have a little tidy up. It had only been three weeks since school started, and he could tell immediately that Jisung was a little messier than he was, but he didn’t mind. He helped wherever he could.

Suddenly, through his headphones, he heard a commotion outside.

He pushed himself across the room on his computer chair, gliding across quietly, glancing over at Jisung as he did, to ensure he didn’t wake him. He peered out of the window at a bunch of guys making their way across the quad, dressed in dark colors, someone slumped over the shortest man’s shoulder, looking in a bad way.

Through the darkness of the night’s sky, and the one or two streetlights across the walkway, it looked like _Chan_ , the guy Minho had told them about; or more so, _warned_ them about.

He heard the front doors of the dorm opening from down the hall, followed by someone moaning and a chorus of ‘ _shh_ ’ing. There were some giggles too, and what sounded like someone thumping into the wall with an _‘oof!_ ’.

He knew he shouldn’t interfere, but something inside of him wanted to make sure that the person was okay; he could never forgive himself if someone got hurt when he could have intervened. He took a deep breath and headed over to his door, hesitating, before opening it ajar just to peer out and check.

The guy slumped over was _Hyunjin_ , the cute, ponytail guy that Jisung had a crush on, and the guy carrying him was also, definitely Chan like he thought. There were three other guys two with colorful hair and the scary bike guy, and Felix suddenly felt his throat tighten in fear.

Chan slumped the younger man up against the wall, but as Felix looked at his face, he realised that Hyunjin was actually _smiling_ , babbling away to himself as Chan chuckled at the sight.

Felix pushed the door slightly further open, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

“Uh… Excuse me? Is he, okay?” Felix asked, raising his voice so that the other men could hear him. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, wide-eyed and cautious, to summon help if needed.

Chan looked back to him, his eyes blown open, a little panicked as he accidentally dropped Hyunjin to the floor, leaving him a giggling mess against the icky carpet.

“Oh shit!” He said, lunging for him again to pick him up, “Yeah, he’s just… It’s totally under control! He’s just had a bit to drink, that’s all. You know how it is right”—

“No?” Felix said, cocking his head to the side as he took a few steps further down the hall.

Felix didn’t really drink, aside from a glass of wine at a family dinner. He was a little sheltered, but it at least looked like Hyunjin was in a good mood, and not in any immediate danger. He’d seen a lot of films about how bad drinking could get, but this didn’t seem to be too concerning.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket, slightly reassured by the look on his face as the other guys helped him into his room.

“Hey, just…” Chan started, faltering slightly, “Don’t tell anyone about this, alright? We’re his friends and we just want him back safely in to bed. Don’t worry about it, he’s not in any danger or anything.”

“Sure, I-I mean, I’m sorry,” Felix stammered, “I didn’t mean to intrude on your night, I just got a little worried—"

Chan looked at him blankly for a minute, his face impassive as he blinked; it felt like he was looking straight through him. Felix slowly turned around to check behind him, then looked back to the older man watching him.

“Do I—Do I have something on my face?” He swiped down either side of his lips with the back of his wrist, to make sure he hadn’t gotten _Pepero_ chocolate across his mouth. He didn’t want to come across as embarrassing in front of someone older.

He saw Chan swallow before he spoke again.

“Where…Where are you from?” He asked.

“Sorry?”

Chan repeated the question again, this time, in English, and Felix was a little surprised, forgetting what Minho had told him.

“Oh, I’m from, Sydney, in Australia...” Felix replied, his mouth slipping into a nervous smile as he bowed.

“Well, I’ll be damned...” Chan responded, “Small world.”


	6. Acceptance

🐶

“Holy fuck Bin, he was so... Just, shit, wow...” Chan said, pacing across the kitchen to the refrigerator and pulling it open. He leant in, pulling out the two liter container of mango juice and taking a swig directly from the carton. 

“I thought pretty boys were my thing? Shame I didn't stick around to see him,” Changbin said from across the table, slumped over his cereal bowl, tapping away at his phone.

“He was Australian, too. It’s like… _Fate_ , or something…” Chan hummed, with a little sigh, and Changbin immediately shook his head, grumbling at the notion.

“Not this again, Channie. It’s the ‘soulmate’ shit all over again, all that’s missing is the balloons...”

“And the cake…” Chan responded.

Chan pulled his regular two kiwi and kale smoothies out of the fridge, tossing them into his gym bag, which was messily opened all across the countertop. He shoved his books in, followed by his keys, before his phone sounded.

It was a message from one of the kids he tutored in English, cancelling their study session today.

Chan sighed in relief, secretly enthralled about getting some actual time to himself for a change after the gym.

“So, that Australian guy,” Changbin piped up, sounding a bit apprehensive, “he’s—he’s friends with Minho, right?” Changbin asked, looking back to him.

“He is?” Chan questioned, dropping his bag on the table and slumping down into the chair next to him.

“Yeah, Minho has this friend who’s his roommate...” He tapped at the table with his fingertips, clicking a few times to try and bring the information back to the forefront of his mind, “I forget his name, but he spoke about him a lot when we were toge—”

“—Wait… I think I’ve seen him around the studio rooms! Does he study music? Kind of small, always wears this green hoodie?” Chan asked.

“I think so, either production or tech—”

“—So, that’s my in, then?” Chan said plainly, his head snapping up. A smile quickly spread across his face, a charismatic kind of _Chan grin_ ; the one he’d flash to any of the faculty or his current conquests’ Moms to win their affections. 

Changbin perked his head up too, looking over at him, watching the older man as he frantically shoved the rest of his stuff in his duffle bag and zipped it up, nearly knocking his bowl over.

“Your ‘in’? Wait, you’re gonna actually try to seek this blonde guy out?” Changbin joked.

“Well, obviously?”

“You sad, _sad_ , motherfucker…” Changbin laughed, shaking his head again, his eyes squinting.

“Not because of the 'soulmate' shit! Bin, I just—I mean…” Chan paused, trying to unscramble the thoughts he’d been having about the freckled guy he’d seen ever since he saw him last night, “I’ve just not seen someone that fucking hot in a while,” He floundered, “ and, he definitely wants me, too.”

“Yeah? That’s all it is? Cause I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other guys…” Changbin teased, his eyebrow crooked in a way that seemed to insinuate _exactly_ what Chan was worried about; that Changbin thought he’d gone totally soft again.

He straightened out, tensing his back muscles as he pulled his arms over his head to stretch. He shook the comment off, releasing the pressure in his arms with a _crack,_ looking confidently back towards Changbin.

“That's all it is. I get these… Church boy vibes from him, _clean cut,_ kind of, you know?” He grinned, sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth, “Totally innocent—”

“—Oh, I see how it is!” Changbin said, his ‘knowing’ smile slipping back to their regularly scheduled shit-eating grins, “he’s a _challenge_ …” Changbin snickered, nodding his head, “you sly, thing, Channie.”

“I’m gonna hit that, no doubt about it. Would be a totally wasted opportunity if I didn’t,” Chan scoffed, as Changbin slapped his hand in to his own, cupping their hands together like they always did.

Chan rose to his feet, grabbing his bag and taking his bowl of blueberries out of the door and upstairs, shovelling them into his mouth with his fingers as he kicked the door open to his bedroom. He dropped down into his computer chair, pulling up a few websites, searching on social media immediately for _Lee Minho_.

He dug around a little, seeing as there were quite a few Lee Minho’s in the world, but he managed to find him by scrolling back through his and Changbin’s old posts. Minho had untagged himself from all of their pictures, but Changbin never used his account, so his tags were still live. He clicked through on to Minho’s profile.

He was still blocked, and unable to see any of his information, _unsurprisingly._

He slumped back against the chair in annoyance, suddenly noticing someone appear in his ‘recommended friends’.

‘ _Han Jisung; 1 mutual friend: Hwang Hyunjin’_

_Bingo, Hoodie Guy._

He clicked through to his page, still slightly restricted as they weren’t friends, but enough to be able to see his activities and info. He clicked through to his ‘ _About Me’_ , his bio reading; ‘ _studies_ _Music Production_ _at Geumcheon National University_ ’.

This Jisung kid was definitely studying the same subject as him.

It was an easy in; he just had to be careful not to get on the wrong side of Minho and blow his cover. He grimaced looking at Han Jisung’s profile picture; a selfie of him and Minho, making peace signs to the camera whilst at Everland, wearing matching animal headbands.

Chan laughed at how embarrassing it was. Then he realised, six months back, that could’ve been _Changbin_ in the cutesy, little squirrel get up. 

🐱

“How was class?” Jisung asked him, settling into his side of the table.

“Oh, it was fine. Totally monotonous. My brain is just full of exocrine glands and trabecular meshwork…” Minho responded, tucking into his box of spicy noodles, head propped up against his palm. He was hyper aware of how tired he looked, so hiding half of his face with his hand was the only idea he could muster to cover it up.

“How do you make that boring shit sound, kind of cool?” Jisung asked.

Minho laughed at the obscure, random compliment, although he was sure Jisung was just humoring him due to how horrific he looked. 

“Hey, what’s that on your coffee cup?” Jisung suddenly questioned, snatching it from his hands and bringing it close to his face to examine it, his eyes glittering.

“Sung… It’s no big deal…” Minho whined, throwing his head back, knowing that Jisung would _definitely_ have something to say about it.

“Did one of the coffee guys give you their number?!” Jisung said excitedly, noticing Minho’s drink sleeve had a hand-written number and some little drawings on it, “Wow that’s… So romantic...” Jisung sighed, bringing the cup to his chest like some kind of damsel in distress.

He pulled his head around, staring off towards the _Coffee Hut_ section of the cafeteria, bobbing his head up and down to check which guy was working today.

“How, exactly is that romantic?” Minho scoffed, snatching it back into his hand and taking a sip of it.

“He put a little heart around the I in Minho! That’s so cute! He must’ve thought you were—”

“—Cute, yeah I get it.” Minho laughed, shaking his head at how excited Jisung got at these pathetically small acts of admiration. 

“Sheesh Minho, you’re so dry! You should talk to him!”

“Nope.”

“Come on! Is something wrong?”

“Huh?” The older man said, snapping his eyes back up to meet Jisung’s.

“You… Is everything okay with you?” Jisung questioned, placing his hand over the back of Minho’s, “you’ve been so much quieter than I thought you’d be, ever since I’ve been here. It’s been a month and I’ve barely seen you out of your room! That’s not the Minho I know!” he said, sliding his hand up to grab on to his bicep and rattle him around, a wide, gummy smile across his face.

“Well, it’s no big deal Jisung. I have a lot of people to see in a day and I’m just kind of stressed out, busy. You know?” He responded.

Jisung nodded in understanding, pouting a little. He slumped back into his chair creating a bit of space between them and looking a little washed out. It hurt Minho’s heart a little whenever Sung would go quiet, compared to how loud and rambling he’d usually be.

“But, but, _but…_ I always have time for my number one, of course!” Minho joked, trying to pull Jisung back around and distract him from the question. He stroked him under the chin with his index finger as the younger man batted him away, a smile tugging at his lips. 

“Are you sure something’s not wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Sungie, I’m totally fine. I promise.” He said, patting the side of Jisung’s face. “I don’t respond to these kinds of ‘romantic gestures’ anyway. People are so uninspiring.”

“Wow, it’s incredible… Your issue is _too many_ guys find you attractive, my issue is, I can’t find _one_.”

Minho let out a breathy laugh, looking back to his food, unaware of how much he was blushing. Unfortunately, his ears always gave him away most of the time and he could feel the heat rising through his skin.

“Anyway, do you want to come to our dorm tonight? Play some pool, have some drinks?” Jisung asked.

“I’ll probably be in the labs.”

“Ah. Fair enough. Hyunjin stopped by and told us he was going to have some friends over, to check we were okay with it and invite us along if we were gonna be there! That’s sweet of him to check, right? He’s so thoughtful!” Jisung sighed, resting his cheek against his hand in a wishful daydream.

Minho looked back to him, unsure fully of what to say. He didn’t know Hyunjin, but he did know Chan.

“Uh, sure... Why not. So sweet of him. I’m happy for you.”

 _That was a lie_ , Minho thought.

“We’ve actually, been like, speaking a little! I say good morning to him now without wanting to throw up!” Jisung beamed, looking back to him. Minho saw him in his periphery, but just continued looking down and eating his food, not wanting to give his discomfort away. “I swear the other day when he was with Chan, he waved to me and Felix from across the quad and he even gave me some fabric softener in the laundry room because I didn’t realise that I’d actually picked up _two_ _detergents_ and that the little gel things were like—”

“—That’s great, Jisung. Like I said, I’m happy for you, and the condition of your fabric...” Minho laughed pitifully. “Do you, actually know anything about this Hyunjin guy, though?”

“What do you mean? I mean, we have each other on social media now. It’s kind of a big deal!”

“Well, it’s just… He’s friends with Chan, right? From my experience, that’s never a good thing...”

“You said that before, but you never told me _why_ you hate him so much, Minho. What actually happened?”

“Oh, just… It was just…” He sighed, trailing off, before Jisung nudged him again, snapping him back to the conversation, “Actually, at one point, we were friends, if you could believe that.”

"You were?" Jisung tilted his head, looking slightly bewildered.

“But, it wasn’t long before I realised what he was really like. Just another narcissistic, inconsiderate dick. No big deal, just one of his stupid frat parties got out of hand and we got in to this big fight, that’s all. We haven’t really spoken since…”

_That was a lie, too._

“What did you fight about?” Jisung asked.

“It’s just… It’s dumb. I just want you to be careful, you know?”

“Well, why don’t you introduce me to some of _your_ friends, then you can rest easy, right? I’ve been meaning to get out on the weekends. You said you had some friends here that you wanted to introduce me to, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Min…” Jisung whined, gripping his hand across the table and holding it loosely in his own palms, “You’re not embarrassed of me, are you?”

“Not at all, Sung. You know that!” He responded defensively, squeezing the younger man's hand back.

“Then why?”

“Look, let's talk about it some other time. I have to go.” Minho said, exhaling. Luckily, his watch sounded at the perfect time, giving him his excuse to get out, before his emotions got the better of him.

“You just got here!?”

“Yeah but… I’m not feeling great. I—I went out with a few of my f-friends from my bio class last night and I just… I have a _really_ bad hangover. That’s all. Like I said, I just have so much going on.”

“You’re an enigma, Lee…” Jisung joked somewhat solemnly, trying to yank him back down to the table again. “Make sure you can make some time for me soon...!”

“I will, Sungie. Maybe another time.”

“Well, when?! We haven’t hung out in ages, and I’ve missed you!”

Minho’s lip curled, with the glimmer of a slight smile forming at how cute Jisung was when he was feeling whiny. 

“That sounds great, Jisung. I’ll catch you later,” he said firmly, throwing his bag over his back, swiftly picking up his luke-warm coffee, and heading for the door...

Minho hated lying, and he hated liars; worst of all, he hated _being_ a liar.

He wasn’t hungover, he wasn’t tired, he wasn’t even hanging out with anyone last night.

He hadn’t in months.

The reality of it was, Minho just had, very few friends. After what went down between him and Changbin, he struggled to trust any of them, anymore.

Truthfully, the reason he wasn’t going to any parties this year, is because he simply wasn’t _invited_ to them. To begin with he’d still be welcomed to go; his old ‘friends’ trying to act as if the whole thing hadn’t happened, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

The problem was, it _was_ a big deal, to Minho, and he couldn't just let it go. 

So much time had passed now, he’d accepted that he wasn’t one of them, anymore.

He couldn’t bring himself to let anyone know how lonely he felt, especially not Jisung. Jisung respected him, and looked up to him for guidance, and it wasn’t something Minho could give back right now.

He wanted to be happy for Jisung falling for this Hyunjin guy, but just knowing who he was friends with made him feel sick to his core; he felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety that he just couldn’t ignore swirling in the depths of his stomach.

The worst thing that could happen was for Jisung and Chan to become close, it would cut him apart, just like Chan did to him.

He looked down at the coffee up in his hand, gripping it tightly, before launching it into the nearest trashcan with all his might, a sudden frustration washing over him.

If he hadn’t fallen for Changbin, none of this would have even fucking happened.

🐶

“Hyunjin…” Seungmin whispered, gently tapping his shoulder before jostling him side-to-side. The slightly older man sprawled out over top of his bedding and pillows, still fully clothed, “Hyunjin, come on, you have class in forty minutes.”

“I—I have… What…?” He groaned, his face tucked into the crevice in between the bed and the wall, hair sticking up at the back, knotted around a forest green ribbon.

“You have art, and you haven’t showered...” Seungmin said, gritting his teeth, “and trust me, you need it…”

“Shit…” Hyunjin said, ushering his barely-there morning strength to push himself up on his palms before propping himself up forward on his elbows. His voice cracked as he groaned, rubbing his hands across his face to be met with the residue of the previous night.

He’d obviously not removed his make up, and the way his eyes looked blackened with crusty mascara and cakey eyeshadow made Seungmin shake his head in total vexation.

He also had a little, purple bruise just at the bottom of his chin, too, which he felt over with his fingers, probably wondering how the hell it could’ve gotten there.

“What… I mean, do I dare ask what happened?” Seungmin sighed, shifting across to their shared desk and sliding his Chromebook into his crossbody. 

“I just… What…?” Hyunjin mumbled, scanning across the room, squinting through just one eye.

“Chan and the guys, they brought you back at like, two in the morning. Do you remember?”

“Yeah… I do. I just, got a little high, last night. That’s all.”

Seungmin rolled his eyes again, zipping the bag up more forcefully than he’d realised and yanking it off of the table.

“This, again?”

“Lighten up Seung, it’s no big deal,” Hyunjin laughed, rubbing the back of his head with a soured expression.

It wasn’t like Seungmin hadn’t seen him like this before, but it didn't mean he had to like it. 

“It is a big deal to me. You know how hard I work here; I don’t want to get in trouble for something dumb that you’ve done. One of the Dean’s kids literally lives next door to us…” Seungmin warned, staring at the slightly older man as he ducked back a little at Seungmin’s sudden raise in voice.

“Yeah, but he’d never rat Chan out, don’t worry about it…” Hyunjin said, dismissing the comment with a flick of his hand.

“Oh, that’s great, then! Well, carry on. Carry on doing, whatever it is you’re doing. Don’t let me stop you!” Seungmin exclaimed, through teeth gritted behind his false smile.

He tried to stifle it; Seungmin could never get loud or aggressive at him, and Hyunjin loved to play with his good nature whenever he could. Teasing Seungmin was something he’d gotten down to a fine art form, a perfectly refined skill that he’d honed over years of knowing him.

He frantically paced towards the door, reaching for his beige and brown plaid coat, pulling it off of the little rack he’d assembled next to the door.

“Are you mad at me?” Hyunjin asked innocently, his voice coated in a layer of petulance, and it made Seungmin stop in his tracks, his shoulders slumping down with a _huff_.

When Seungmin looked back to him, he was staring back, with his regular little pout, ducking his head backwards to lean against the wall behind the bed in a sulk.

“No... I’m not.” He almost-snapped, blinking his frustrations away.

“Seungminnie… Are you mad at Hyunjin?” Hyunjin cooed, his bottom lip sticking out, flashing him the widest puppy-dog eyes imaginable...

“Don’t talk in third person, it’s not cute—"

“—I’m cute...”

“Shut up.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not!” He shouted, turning back with his fists clenched, “Just, forget about it!”

He slammed the door on his way out, shaking the walls, his eyes starting to go a little misty through his anger. 

🐱

Jisung was sure he didn’t believe Minho when he said nothing was wrong. They’d known each other long enough to pick up on their subtle cues.

Minho had always been a bit confusing, to say the least, but usually he and Jisung kind of just, _got_ each other, on a spiritual kind of level.

Maybe Jisung was just overthinking things. Minho was probably right; he’d probably just gotten too drunk last night.

He must remind himself to text him tonight, just to be sure, Jisung thought.

“Hey, Jisung, right?” A voice sounded.

“Um… Hi! Yeah, it is—Yes, that’s my name,” he blinked, staring back at the curly-haired, muscular man, donning only tracksuit bottoms and a muscle shirt that was so loose it might as well not have even been on… “Oh, shit—Hey, uh, Chan, right?”

The man immediately shot down beside him, sliding into the chair where Minho just was, leaning across the table, staring at him intently.

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ve met at Hyunjin’s dorm a few times?” He responded.

“Y-yeah! I think, yeah. I think we have kind of, in passing, maybe” Jisung stuttered, acutely aware of how people were suddenly staring at them.

“Hey, listen. Mrs Jung said you’re one of the new music production students?”

“Yeah, I am actually!”

“Awesome, have you finished your first project?” He said, his words so fast Jisung barely even caught what he'd even said.

“Oh, uh, nearly? I’m kind of in the process of fixing it up—”

“—Well, sorry if this is super out of the blue, but I’m part of this tutoring program, and one of my students just dropped out. I was wondering if you needed any help with anything, in the class?”

“A… Tutoring, program?” Jisung repeated, blinking back at him.

“Yeah, like, I help you out with your coursework, and stuff? Don’t worry if not, or anything. It’s just, _Hyunjin_ told me that you study music, so I kind of figured I could help you out, considering I study the same subject.”

Jisung’s mind went totally blank as soon as he heard Hyunjin’s name. He wasn’t sure he’d even spoken to Hyunjin enough to tell him he studied music… It must have spilled out in one of his nerve-induced ramblings.

“If you don’t need any help, that’s cool. Don’t worry about it.”

“No, no! I mean! I could definitely do with some feedback?” Jisung scrambled, trying desperately to stop the older man from leaving.

“Awesome, well, all I’d need to do to get credits is to study with you, once a week, or so? Is that cool? Sorry, this is so out of the blue.”

“I—I uh, yeah! Totally! I mean, not to be… Weird or anything but, I’d be honored! You’re kind of a legend, around here. I follow you on _Soundcloud_ as well… Not that… You needed to know that, or anything. I didn’t search for you or anything you just kind of came up… I, uh—”

“—No, no, that’s not true. I’m not a legend! But thank you, for liking my shit,” Chan laughed.

“Jisungie!”

Chan’s head snapped up at the sound of the voice.

In front of them was a large, crisp, white box wobbling around, with tiny, little, light-washed denim legs buckling under the size of it.

It was Felix, coming in to view from across the cafeteria, poking his head out from behind the box. 

“Can you help me with this?” The blonde puffed, exhaling before Jisung sprung up and came over to help him prop the big white box on the table.

“Woah, what’s in the box, Felix?” Jisung asked, a little dumbfounded.

“Oh, just a cake from my class! We made desserts. It’s a matcha and chocolate marble cake!” He smiled, opening the box up. It was colossal, and he’d decorated it with little orange suns and silver, glittery moons across the top.

 _So perfectly Felix_ , Jisung thought.

Chan suddenly started _coughing,_ his eyes widening at the sight of the cake.

“Hey Felix, this is _Chan!_ ” Jisung said, beaming with pride. Chan hadn’t taken his eyes away from his friend the entire time, and he used the time that Chan’s back was turned to him to excitedly mouth “ _Oh my God, I know, right?!”_ in Felix’s direction.

“Hi, I’m Felix, or Yongbok, or whatever!” He said, nodding.

“Oh, hi. I’m Chris, or Chan, or whatever.”

Jisung looked at him in confusion, cocking an eyebrow. He knew Chan was raised abroad, but for some reason it sounded weird to hear him use a different name.

“You’re that guy, from last night...” Felix said, scrunching his eyes up, giggling at the end of the sentence.

“Yeah, it’s… Look, thanks, for not saying anything, and thanks for being worried about Jin,” the older man said, a look of contentment on his face. “That cake, looks incredible, by the way. Maybe you can give Jisung the recipe, and then Jisung can gift it to me at our next tutoring session?” Chan joked, looking around to him.

“Our next tutoring session?—” Jisung looked in between them, a little confusion slipping through; there was a sense of familiarity that he couldn’t quite understand.

 _It must be an Australian thing_ , or something, Jisung thought...

“—What do you study, Felix?” Chan asked, leaning across the table across Jisung’s side.

“Oh, culinary arts!” Felix responded, pointing to the box again, "but this isn't a project, it's from another class I take".

“Wow, you’re studying culinary arts _and_ you’re doing a cooking class? You would have thought you’d be bored of cooking, by now.”

“No, no! I love it. I get to make pastries and stuff in my cooking class, a lot of my course work is kind of… Different cuisines and classical foundations, you know?”

“Uh, guys?” Jisung tried to interrupt, raising a finger, only to be _shushed_ by Chan waving his hand in front of him.

“Yup, uh-huh…” Chan nodded along, totally lost, staring at the blonde man as he listed off his favorite things to cook...

“I wanted to make wedding cakes, or I’d like to own like, a bakery, or a patisserie, maybe. I know it, sounds dumb...!” Felix tittered, ears slightly pinkened.

“No, no, not at all! It sounds, kind of cute, actually.”

Jisung looked to Chan, then back to Felix, then back to Chan, again.

“Hey, well Felix, Jisung and I are gonna be here a little while working on this project of his, so maybe if you’re around for a while?”

“Uh, I haven’t got my laptop or my mixer—" Jisung tried to add.

“Oh, sure! I mean, if that’s okay! I don’t want to intrude on your studies, or anything!” Felix giggled, bowing at the notion.

“Not at all,” Chan said welcomingly, “you can come and join us if music theory isn’t too boring, for you!”

Jisung slumped back into his own chair, pulling his phone out and blowing his bangs out of his face in total exasperation.

He should remember to text Minho…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW so again, very heavily dialogue-based chapter again, and i know it's long so thanks for getting through that! the tension is building now and we're heading towards some ***stuff*** so stay tuned!!!  
> for the moment, i wanted to focus a lil on the best friendships in this, minsung and seungjin!! 
> 
> so, do we hate chan or??????? what do we think
> 
> next chap we're gonna get some minbin interactions (ooh drama) and maybe there's a lil chanlix and minsung development, we'll see 😇
> 
> find me on bird app @yfwbbs but be warned i am on clio lockdown because i am in love with seungmin. thanks for listening.


	7. Two Weeks

🐱

Minho always came to the old science building near the west wing. He knew there were better labs, with better equipment, but something about the early-1990’s, terracotta décor and lack of student presence in this particular lab always calmed him down when he was feeling overwhelmed.

There were only two other students, tucked away in the corner working on something, scribbling away on flipcharts, but other than that he felt the much-needed relief of just being _invisible_. He could study here and be away from the legions of people in the student centre, and he didn’t have to have his guard up all the time.

He slumped down against the black metal and mahogany stool, respiring into the cool air. He pulled his glasses off, setting them down on the desk in front, rubbing his hands over his weathered eye bags. He was barely sleeping and hardly eating much; avoiding the world was really taking its toll.

He pulled his books out, spreading them out across the desk, looking over his paper titled _‘lymphocytes, monocytes and plasma cells’_ and his large diagram of the lymphatic system beneath it.

If anything, his dwindling social life was certainly improving his grades...

He suddenly lifted his head, sensing that there was another presence in the room. He glanced off to the side of his periphery, seeing the two guys in the corner suddenly stop talking, before apprehensive expressions appeared across their faces.

He noticed them gather their things, grabbing their stationery and books and shoving them back into their bags, both of them shuffling to exit at the other door, noticing some kind of intrusion.

Minho stared at them, part empathetically, part as a desperate attempt to tell the two other sophomores just to _stand up for themselves_ ; but obviously, they didn’t. Not that _he_ could particularly talk about ‘standing up for yourself’, in that sense.

He exhaled all of the air out of his lungs, lulling his head back as they finally left, the sound of the old wooden door squeaking on their way out.

“You like to make an entrance, huh?” Minho asked firmly, with a tinge of irritation.

“I—I didn’t know anyone was in here…” the voice came, then the retched noise of the old wooden door scraping again.

“Oh, not at all, Changbin. You had _no idea_ that I’d be in here, considering I come in here all the time... What do you want?” he said, glumly spinning himself around in his lab stool to connect eyes with the older man, who was standing hesitantly in the doorway, trying to act self-confident with his hands in his pockets.

“Nothing, just…” he floundered, trying to look around each corner of the room, rather than hold their gaze, “just, how… How have you been?”

“How have I been? Are you kidding me?” Minho said, weakly laughing at the audacity, “are you really interested, or are you just trying to quell your guilt?” he turned his body around in his chair, facing him head on.

“Minho—”

“Or, do you even feel guilt? Is that an emotion you’re physically capable of?”

“You know I can—"

“Why are you here?” Minho asked, blinking at him slowly.

“What, so you _own_ the chem lab, now?” Changbin scoffed, “maybe I just wanted to get away, like you, somewhere quiet—” 

“Never in your entire life have you ever _not_ wanted to be noticed. Not hard to ignore the sound of your stupid bike pulling up outside and the sounds of innocent students running for their lives like a herd of antelopes...” Minho spat, trying his best to control his emotions before he embarrassingly burst into tears, or something.

He couldn’t let Changbin know how much it was getting to him.

“I know you’re mad, I know. And I know it seems dumb for me to come back and… Fuck, this is dumb. I know. I don’t even know why I’m even here—”

“You laughed about it again, the other week. I heard you. I’m tired of this, honestly.” Minho responded coolly, slamming his right palm down against the edge of the desk, harder than he’d anticipated.

“Minho, look I’ve told you, it was just some, thing. I was just… Anyway, I’m sorry, okay?”

“—You think sorry is gonna cut it?!” He shrieked, totally exasperated, “Just, get out of here, I have shit to do!”

“You study Biology, anyway, why are you in the Chem lab?”

“Maybe I was trying to concoct an acid strong enough to wipe you off the face of the Earth.”

“Sounds like a trip... Look, I’m sorry that you had to find out the way you did, it’s just that… I mean I was going to tell you once I knew what to do. You know that I’d—I’d started… I had some feeli—Fuck, I don’t know…” The younger man fumbled, barely even able to keep any semblance of eye contact.

“You’re sorry for _the way_ I found out? So, you’re _not_ sorry for just using me in the first place?” Minho hissed, staring him dead in the eye without faltering, “I’m going to assume that you haven’t told the rest of them that you’re here, and that you suddenly care about me, again? You’re magically over how _embarrassed_ you were of me? Well, that’s great to hear.”

“Fine, Minho. Look, I tried. Whatever, don’t accept my apology, then. Hate me forever,” he said, dismissing the comment with a flick of his hand. He turned heel to walk away, hands still shoved in his motorbike jacket pockets, Minho muttering under his breath.

“Oh, trust me, I intend to…”

“I’m only here to go and meet someone, anyway, just thought I’d stop by and—”

“—I don’t want to hear about what you’re doing without me, Changbin.” Minho said, resolutely. “Don’t you think you’ve hurt me, enough?”

He swallowed harshly and barely glanced to the side of his periphery, just catching Changbin’s solemn expression before he looked back down to focus on his work. Changbin turned back around to look at him one final time, before eventually sauntering out of the room.

Minho screwed his eyes tightly shut, gritting his back teeth together, an ache forming in his chest as he desperately tried to hold himself back from crying. He gripped the pen already in his hand, tightening his fist around it, before suddenly jabbing in against his book, scribbling across everything he’d written so far, hard enough to break the bonds of the paper.

🐶

“Hey Felix! Wait up!” Chan shouted, running over to catch up with him into a slow jog. He pushed his hands through his hair, settling down some of the post-shower curls that had formed, before shoving his black cap over top of them.

He’d rushed out of the house to get ready this morning.

_For no particular reason..._

“Oh, hey Chan,” the preppy blonde responded with a smile, pulling his left earphone out of his ear, “what’s up?”

“Uh, nothing really. Just thought I’d say hi. You heading to a class?”

_He knew he wasn’t._

“Oh, no, I’m heading back to the dorm, I’m done for the day. I have barely any classes on Thursdays,” he responded politely, looking back ahead.

“Ah, that’s great.”

_It was great._

“I’m off to see Hyunjin,” Chan said casually, slipping both of his hands in to the front pocket of his hoodie, and matching Felix’s pace, trying to strike up a conversation as they wandered.

“Oh, yeah! I must’ve forgotten. He did say he was having people round tonight. Are you coming along?” He asked, smiling his same cutesy smile that Chan has been thinking about since cakegate. It was heart attack inducing, and it made his breathing hitch a little.

“Totally. Wouldn’t miss it. Hyunjin’s like, my brother. I’ve known him all my life.”

“All your life? When did you move here, then?” Felix asked, looking back to him over his shoulder.

“Well, my Dad lives in Aus and my Mom lives in Korea so it’s kind of nice to have a constant whenever I’m here, you know? Hyunjin is that constant, can’t get away from him,” he laughed, “even ended up going to the same college.”

“I think that’s great! You have automatic friends! Do you go between the two countries, then?”

“Yeah, until college I kinda went half-and-half.”

“That’s amazing… I wish I could go back and forth…” Felix said, a bittersweet smile spreading across his face as he sighed into the air, “it’s too expensive for me, though. I talk to my family on Skype, just to keep updated, I guess. I have two sisters back home.”

“Ah, I have a sister, too. Sucks that you can’t see them much…” Chan looked down at the younger man, nodding in understanding. It went a little awkward between them, Felix wallowing in his own sorrow for a while as they wandered down towards the quad. “By the way, that matcha cake? Incredible. Was it a recipe you found?”

Felix looked back towards him, slightly surprised at the change in topic.

“Oh, it started as a recipe but then I kind of, just went off radar and did what I felt was right! Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith, and it paid off, I think.”

He smiled again, this time his eyes masked by the softness of his cheeks spattered with freckles across them, and his nose crinkling at the top and Chan was sure he was about to spontaneously combust.

“Definitely, it tasted amazing! You’re really talented.”

“Really?” The younger man beamed, a dusting of pink suddenly spreading across his face as he turned back forward to try and mask his gratitude for the compliment.

“Totally! I’d love to taste some of your cooking somet—

He stopped in his tracks, head darting up in alarm as he saw Changbin coming in to view, helmet in hand and still in his leathers from the parking lot. He was cockily swaggering over towards them from the direction of the West building.

It was pretty weird to see him around this area. The only things around here were the old science buildings and the scaffolding for a new mobile learning centre. Chan had planned to find Felix walking back in this direction, hoping that no one he knew would be around.

“Hey, Chan!” Changbin called out, smirking at him, “I thought it was you.”

“Uh— Hey, man, how’s it going?” He said anxiously, rubbing at the back of his neck, slightly blocking Felix’s view with the angle of his shoulder, although he knew it was pretty pointless. Changbin would have definitely seen him by now. 

“Not too bad, finished for the day,” he said, clasping hold of Chan’s hand and pulling him forward with his grip to pat him on the back. He glanced off behind him, staring at the slightly nervous looking blonde behind him, “and who’s this?”

Felix immediately bowed, and Chan noticed Changbin’s eyes quickly flashing up and down, scanning over him with a little glint in his eye.

“Uh, Changbin this is…” he swallowed, “Felix.”

“Felix… Felix, Felix, _Felix_ —” he said, clacking his tongue afterwards, “hmm, that’s a different kind of name...” Changbin said, looking him up and down. Chan tried to ignore the way that Changbin’s eyes lingered on him a _little too long_ for his liking.

“Yeah, well, I’m Austral—"

“—Uh, Felix lives in the same dorm as Hyunjin, we’re heading there now to meet him,” Chan interrupted.

Changbin’s head abruptly snapped back to look at Chan, his brow lowering in annoyance at the new information.

“Hyunjin’s…?” he questioned, “and where was my invite?”

“He didn’t invite you?” Chan asked, genuinely a little perplexed.

Chan had known something had gone down between him and Hyunjin the night of _Roma_ , but neither of them would admit anything, and no one had seen them disappear off out of sight. Chan suspected that at how outrageous Hyunjin was acting and how pink his eyes looked, even under the cerise strobes, that he wasn’t _just_ under the influence of a few tequila slammers…

No first timer could handle as much pot as Changbin could. Maybe he felt awkward, or maybe Changbin had made fun of him for being able to keep up.

Either way, it was tense between them, that much was pretty clear.

“Well, I mean, it’s just a few people in the living room watching movies!” Felix said, “I’m sure he probably just forgot to mention it, because it’s kind of casual!”

Chan looked at him. Felix didn’t even _know_ Changbin, and here he was, trying to make him feel better about not being invited to something. Chan could see how Changbin’s eyes lit up at the comment.

He wished to say that it was because he had _also_ noticed how sweet and kind-hearted Felix was, but he suspected the glint in his eye was definitely a different kind of intrigue. 

🐶

“Look who showed up?! Wow, Changbin. Are you feeling alright?” Bambam said, patting him on the shoulder as soon as he entered the room, ushering him through the door. Changbin immediately sneered, pulling away from him.

He didn’t _do_ skinship, ever.

“Heard there was food…” He said, looking immediately over to Hyunjin, who looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights at his sudden arrival. He was wrapped up in a large white hoodie with his hair tied back into a loose bun, and Changbin saw him physically recoil back into it as they looked at each other.

Who the fuck did this kid even think he was? Inviting all of his guys but not him? And for what, some shitty little movie night?

He shouldn’t even really care, anyway.

There were a few other freshmen here, and Changbin had literally no clue who any of them were other than Hyunjin’s sweater friend, who he just referred to as, _Sweater Guy_.

He didn’t particularly enjoy hanging out at some shitty, little freshman dorm; but Hyunjin lived here, and that was more than enough encouragement for him to tag along, even if just to royally piss him off.

There was something about Hyunjin; and it wasn’t just that he was extremely fucking hot; because that was a given, rather he was kind of _fascinated_ by him.

Hyunjin didn’t back down, he kept their gaze for a little while; it was almost impressive. The way he was staring such _defiance_ , it just made Changbin want to break him even more.

 _Oh, to have that man in his hands_ , he thought, it’d been sending him practically feral ever since they first met.

He watched as Hyunjin finally got up to meander over across to the kitchen area where the electric kettle and toaster were, ripping open some bags of chips and pulling some beers out of the fridge for the rest of the guys.

Chan’s little, virginal, blondie slipped out to go to his dorm room to get changed and ‘find his roommate’ too, and Changbin’s keen eye was suddenly caught, watching him as he exited, eyes darting up and down his little figure in front. Chan was definitely right about him; perfectly innocent in every way. 

Chan had slumped down on one of the leather couches closest to the pool table, spreading himself out. Changbin perched on the back of the couch indifferently, leaning down close to Chan’s ear as the older man tapped away on his phone, barely watching the awful, grey-filtered, indie film that Hyunjin had picked out.

“If _you_ don’t rail him, I’m gonna...” Changbin whispered to him menacingly, the sudden noise close to his ear made the older man lurch forward, spilling some of his drink down his front.

“W-what?” Chan choked out.

“That’s your little blonde guy? You weren’t kidding…” Changbin said, gesturing with his eyes to the doorway, watching as Felix slipped out of it.

“I know. And look, that’s… Just don’t go there, I…” Chan trailed off, regaining his composure, “I have my eyes on him, alright? Don’t try and fuck me over, here, Changbin. That one is mine.” He said, leaning backwards so that only Changbin could hear him.

“How long?” he teased back, biting at his lower lip.

Chan turned back around to meet him, his face as still as stone and his steely expression faltering. He swallowed before lightly tilting his head to the side.

“What?”

“How long, before fair game, with him?” Changbin asked, cocking an eyebrow.

He could do with a suitable backup if Hyunjin was gonna keep playing prissy and hard-to-get. Trust Chan to choose someone who was pretty much perfectly Changbin’s usual go-to type... The freckled blonde was definitely someone he'd usually have his eye on. 

“Uh… Three weeks? Four, tops…” the older man responded.

“Deal. After that though, he’s on the table.”

“Fine.” Chan huffed, swinging himself back around to slouch against the back of the couch.

Changbin immediately got up, wiping his palms against his thighs, and waltzing over to find Hyunjin, who was scraping some kind of green dip into a huge bowl. He’d also cut some lemons up and set them aside on the counter and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

It was the most _un-college_ thing Changbin had ever seen.

It was almost funny to him, just how prim and proper Hyunjin was. Changbin could pretty much guarantee that no one in his frat wanted to be here, eating fucking chips and guacamole, but here they were, entertaining it all just because Hyunjin was Chan’s friend.

He didn’t fit in with them, that much was clear; but that was what made him so fucking desirable in the first place.

Changbin slid across the cheap linoleum, edging in behind him, making sure to check that Chan was fully immersed with his phone before he murmured across to the taller man from behind his shoulder.

“So, you gonna ignore me all night then, pretty boy?” Changbin teased.

“Preferably.”

“You’re really gonna invite my boys to your little movie night and _not m_ e? If you keep ignoring me like this, people might think that something happened between us…”

“What, like you, getting me high and then kissing me, before trying to drag me back to some ugly apartment complex?” the younger man responded, totally deadpan, still focused on the bowl in front of him.

“Ugly?! Those are some of the best fucking apartments in Geumcheon!” Changbin scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief, “and besides, you weren’t exactly saying no, were you? Mr- _‘I prefer a pipe, more intense...!”_ Changbin mocked.

Hyunjin exhaled deeply, clearly trying not to show how embarrassed he was. He closed his eyes for a few moments, trying desperately to keep his voice down with all the others around.

“Well, how could I say no,” he said, snapping his head around to look at him, stifling his volume a little, “when your tongue was down my throat?”

Changbin leant in, feeling invariably smug at just how much he could twist Hyunjin with teasing alone. He pulled his tongue between his teeth, snaking his lip ring around and decreasing the space between their faces.

“My tongue could be somewhere else if you play your cards—”

Hyunjin immediately shoved a handful of chips, covered in guacamole, in his mouth, looking around the room desperately to make sure no one had heard him. Luckily, the sound bar was blasting the TV pretty loudly, and Chan seemed pretty absorbed, talking to Felix and Hoodie guy, who’d appeared at some point throughout the night.

“—So, you’re kind of forceful yourself, huh? Full of surprises,” Changbin laughed, his mouth still full of chips.

“Ugh, that is _so_ repulsive,” Hyunjin replied, grimacing. He threw his eyes back before snatching the tray of chips in his hands, barging past Changbin’s shoulder, jolting him. 

“Two weeks.” Changbin said.

“What?” Hyunjin turned back around, looking at him in confusion and cocking his head to the side.

“Two weeks. That’s how long I’ll need for you to come around, trust me…” Changbin teased, leaning lethargically against the kitchen counter, shovelling another chip into his mouth.

“You’re a pig. I cannot believe there are actually people that act like you. I thought you were like, an urban myth…”

“Well, here I am, in the flesh. So, when are you gonna take me up on that bike ride, then, pretty boy?”

“When it benefits me in any kind of way. Until then, keep dreaming.”

“Do you guys wanna get pizza in?” Chan shouted across to them, leaning across the back of the couch, spread out over two of the seats, “I fancy something _bad_ for once!”

Hyunjin looked back at Changbin, who shoved the chip back in his mouth and cracked open the tab of a fresh beer from the counter next to him, wiggling his eyebrows.

Two weeks.

🐱

It’d been a really lovely night, it was almost a shame it had come to an end, Felix thought. They’d just stayed in the living room of the dorm and shared some food, chatted amongst themselves. It totally distracted Felix from how low he’d been feeling, recently.

Felix enjoyed hanging out with some of his dormmates, as well as some of the other boys from other classes that Hyunjin knew, too. It was really kind of him to invite them along, and Jisung seemed pretty happy with the progress he was making around people.

Maybe it wasn’t the _crazy college night_ that Jisung had been longing for, but it was really enjoyable, in Felix’s opinion. He opted to not drink any of the beers, as he didn’t really like the smell of it, but Jisung had a few.

The best thing about being invited along, was that Chan was there.

He’d tried to not give too much away when Chan approached him on the walk back to the dorm, but his stomach was doing kickflips as soon as he’d realised that he was catching up to _talk to him_.

Minho had warned him to be cautious of the older man, but he seemed so sincere and genuinely interested in finding out things about him. He even asked about his cooking, and about his home life, and about his family. He was pretty dreamy, too, so Felix could understand why he had everyone here wrapped around his pinkie finger.

He and Jisung wandered back down the hall to their room, Felix sliding his hand in to his front pocket and pulling their key out of his jeans.

“Hey Felix! Jisung! Before you head back to your room!” Chan said, calling back down the hallway after them. Felix glanced up from the door to look at him, poking his head out of the door frame, “are you guys doing anything Saturday?”

Felix just stood there, wide-eyed and delirious at the sudden invitation, so Jisung nudged him on the arm, bringing him back to life for a moment. He shook his head from side-to-side, trying to bring the words back.

“Oh, well, we _were_ gonna stay in and camp in our dorm room! Felix said, smiling, “we bought a tent and everything. I used to camp a lot, and I’ve been pretty homesick, so Jisung thought it might be a cute idea—”

Jisung suddenly pulled at his arm, wrenching him backwards, and Felix realised that maybe his cute night camping in the dorm room, might sound a little pathetic to someone cool, like Chan… 

“Definitely sounds cute. Anyway, we’re throwing this party at ours. It’s gonna be tons of fun. You can come, if you want!” the older man offered.

“We—we, as in _us?_ We can?” Jisung stammered, blinking in amazement.

“Yeah, of course. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of people there, so it won’t be awkward or anything. Hyunjin’s invited some other guys from your dorm too so you should know people. We’ve got pool, hot tub, gonna order in tons of food, the works. You guys could tag, it’d be fun, right?”

“That’s… I mean, Jisung and I _have_ wanted to get out a little more, maybe!” Felix stuttered, trying to sound more confident after picking up on Jisung’s cues. “Thanks, Chan. That’s nice of you!”

“No worries. If I’m honest, I’ve been kind of wanting to get to know you guys a little more, anyway!” He said, smiling.

“Y-you have?” Jisung responded.

“Yeah, _Hyunjin’s_ told me a _lot_ about you, Jisung, and you seem pretty cool, from what I’ve heard of your music. And, well, Felix. We must have a lot to talk about, right?” he said, chuckling afterwards.

He winked at them both before he slipped back into the living room with the others, and Felix felt like his heart had been passed from his chest to his feet before the older man suddenly ducked his head back through the door again.

“Oh, and hey Felix?”

“Y-yeah?”

“Love the beret, it’s cute. You look cute, today. And Jisung, I’ll catch you Monday, yeah, for tutoring?” He said, throwing him a thumbs up.

“Totally!” Jisung beamed, balling his fists up, watching as Chan finally closed the door behind him. They turned to face each other, both of them wide-eyed and stunned into silence for a while…

“Oh my God...” Jisung said, “Chan just… _Flirted with you_.”

“R-really?! Well, I mean! I thought he kind of did, but I wasn’t sure!?” Felix said, his hands frantically waving in front of him before Jisung grasped him, either side of his arms.

“Felix?! Are you insane?!”

“And what about you?! Hyunjin apparently talks about you!” Felix screeched, and he saw Jisung throw his head back in disbelief.

“Oh my God. Let me in our room right now, I’m about to throw the hell up.”


	8. That Night, Part One

🐱

“I brought an extra pillow. I know it’s ‘camping’ but tell that to my lumbar…” Minho said, waltzing in through their front door as soon as Felix opened it, two fluffy white pillows under both of his arms, “W-what’s going on?”

He glanced across to a very guilty looking Jisung, who was sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands in his lap. He watched the younger man exhale timidly, and Minho felt like he was being summoned to some kind of intervention.

It was weird, Jisung was dressed and styled, different. He had black skinny jeans on, which was a given, but he also had a blue button up on, loosened to the third button and rolled at the sleeve. His hair, which was usually just messily flopped over his face, had been half sprayed back, revealing his forehead.

“Are you wearing makeup?” Minho asked, dropping the pillows to the floor, and taking the younger man’s chin into his hand, twisting towards his cheek. Jisung immediately batted his fingers away, tapping his skin cautiously afterwards, to ensure that Minho hadn’t ruined his work.

“Felix did it, but he looks better than I do, in it…” He replied.

“Okay, but… Why?”

“Well, Felix and I were thinking, that we do something fun, tonight… We got invited to this party, and a few guys from the dorm are going so…”

“You didn’t think to tell me that before I bought pyjamas?” Minho moaned, slumping his bag down to the floor near their desk, “where is it…?”

Jisung and Felix nervously looked towards each other in perfect unison, before Jisung looked back, barely able to keep eye contact.

“It’s at… It’s at _Alpha Kappa Epsi_ …”

“—Absolutely not,” Minho rose to his feet, “are you out of your mind?! Guys, I warned you, they’re honestly just—”

Jisung rose to his feet too, immediately grabbing his hands to stop him from leaving, weaving his body around in front of him to block his path out of the room.

“—Look, Min. I know that you haven’t seen eye-to-eye with Chan, but trust us, he’s been tutoring me recently and he’s actually a really nice—”

“—He’s tutoring you?” Minho asked, his head shooting up immediately, “Since when?”

“It was just kind of, off-the-cuff. We hung out with him Thursday night, too, he’s really not as awful as you think!”

“Plus, he said there would be loads of people there, so it’s not even like you had to see him that much, if you didn’t want to! There’s already like thirty people living in that house, we can just, kind of hang out!” Felix added, sticking his index finger up at his sudden idea. Minho looked back to him and it immediately went back down again, the freckled boy curling back in on himself.

“I’ll be in his house, that’s enough…” Minho scoffed, “I can’t believe you guys...”

“Come on Min, please? Pretty please?” Jisung pleaded, squeezing his wrists, “Hyunjin is gonna be there and I’ve been making some progress with him. We’re talking a lot now and I don’t wanna miss my shot!”

Minho stared at his doe-eyed best friend, his slightly glossier-than-normal bottom lip sticking out just a little in to a sad, little pout, and Minho hated how lenient he was whenever it came to Jisung. He unclenched his back teeth, looking around the corners of the room, pondering for a moment if he could manage to go an entire night in that huge house, avoiding Changbin.

“Fine. But I’m staying downstairs or in the back yard for most of the night, and I won’t drink too much. I just want to avoid any kind of confront—”

“—Deal! Thank you, Min! You’re the best!” Jisung said, throwing his arms around him and squeezing him tightly.

Minho didn’t hug back, rather just let Jisung have his little moment of euphoria before he sighed his eyes shut against his shoulder.

🐶

Seungmin blinked through his sleeplessness. He’d wandered into the living room to make a coffee, fully prepared to make use of the coffee machine that definitely wasn’t his. Loads of the guys from his dorm were already getting ready for the _big party_ tonight, some pre-drinking at the pool table and music blaring from the sound bar across the TV.

“Hope you’re not here to use my coffee machine...” An ominous voice sounded from the doorway.

“Shit—Jeongin, what’re… What? No, of course not!” He stammered back, with his hand on his heart at the sudden appearance of the weird guy that barely even left his room on most occasions.

“Why have you got a mug, then?” He asked, raising a dry eyebrow at him, his hands crossed over his chest as he peered in through the doorway suspiciously.

“I—I just…”

“Aren’t you going to the party?” Jeongin suddenly asked, “or weren’t you invited?” he scoffed, throwing his head backwards.

“Of course I was invited, I just, don’t want to go.”

The younger man strolled in, perching himself against the counter island stool, the one that wasn’t broken in last weeks game of _Truth or Drink_ … He leant against it, propped up and staring at Seungmin with a disapproving look in his eyes, which quickly twisted into a sick smile.

“You’re mad at him, huh?” he asked mockingly, taking a bite out of one of the cookies set aside in the clear jar that their Australian dormmate had baked yesterday.

“What? Who?”

“Hwang, you’re mad at him.”

“I’m not mad.” Seungmin responded, glaring at him defiantly.

“You are. You’re mad because they like him more than you,” he mumbled, with a face full of cookie.

Seungmin pulled back in offense, his head hitching to the left at how forward this guy was. The comment had caught him off guard, and he certainly didn’t like what this kid was insinuating.

“It’s not that. I couldn’t care less if people liked me or not… I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not just to impress people. It’s not what I’m like and I never will be...”

“Mmm-hmm...” the younger man said, spinning nonchalantly on the chair, kicking his feet against the cabinet each turn. The smug look on his face and the banging noise of his _Converse_ soles colliding with the wood frustrated Seungmin to no end, and he found himself balling his fists up under his sweater sleeve.

“I seriously don’t care. They’re not my kind of people, anyway.”

“So, why are you mad then?” Jeongin asked.

“I guess… Well, it’s just that,” he stopped, eyes snapping back to him, "wait, I never said I was mad?!” Seungmin exclaimed, his face screwed up in annoyance.

“Ah-hah. But you are. You don’t have to pretend. I really couldn’t care either way.”

“Fine. I guess I just, kind of, miss him, that’s all. Not in a weird way or anything, nothing like that. I just miss having my best friend around and not having to listen to the boring shit they talk about...”

He sighed, turning back around to place his palms against the counter, and letting his shoulders drop down in dejection. This would be the third weekend that Hyunjin was hanging out at the frat house, and it probably wouldn’t be too long that he’d want to join, and that he wouldn’t want to room with him, anymore.

“I’ll be your best friend, if you want…” Jeongin suddenly responded, shrugging.

“I—I thought you didn’t really do friendships, or talking… or anything…” Seungmin said. He turned back around in confusion, but Jeongin’s face wasn’t one of teasing, like he expected, rather he looked totally non-perplexed even with making such an audacious statement.

“That was before I saw how pathetic you were. Now I just feel kinda bad for you.”

“Gee, thanks… Why? What’s in it for you?” Seungmin asked suspiciously; _there was no way this kid was being serious_ , he thought.

“Just sounds fun. How about we both go to the party? I can make you look…” he glanced up and down the older man’s body, suddenly making Seungmin feel self-conscious of his silk pyjama pants and grey sweater combo, “Better. Not like it’s hard.”

“You’re invited? You don’t even leave your room?”

“I have Chan in the palm of my hand, Seungmo.”

“It’s actually Seung _min_ —

“—I have Chan in the palm of my hand, _Seungmo_. Leave it to me, we’ll make it fun!” He beamed, smiling his signature wicked grin with a chin full of crumbs.

“So, is this your strange way of wanting to actually be my friend, and having barely the social skills to just _ask_ —

“—Nah. Don’t be weird. I just like the anarchy. Come on, I have two kegs of beer in my room and a ton of limited edition _Oreos Poppin’ Candy._ ” 

🐱

Okay, three, two, one!” they all threw their shots back, chewing down the burn as they all stuck their tongues out in disgust.

They were all sat in a little triangle on the floor, legs crossed, four bottles in front of them that Jisung had managed to obtain, enlisting the help of Chan’s friend Bambam, a poorly produced fake ID and a shop assistant with a huge crush on the Junior.

They had a small bottle of vodka, a bottle of white wine and two alcopops, because Jisung had enjoyed them at his cousin’s wedding.

In comparison to the fruity blue cherry flavor he’d tried before, his first taste of vodka was the polar opposite experience. It tasted like, well, pain.

“Oh my gosh, this is awful! How can anyone like to drink this?!” Felix asked, flapping his arms around, gritting his teeth as he shook his head.

“Felix, no one _likes_ it. This isn’t drinking for the taste, this is drinking to get drunk…” Minho responded, following his shot up with a swig of the sweeter, bright azure-blue coloured alcopop.

“I definitely feel it!” Jisung said, nodding, “I’ll be super confident; set the scene. Walk in, oh hey, Hyunjin, _baby_...” He magnificently stood up, swooping his hand around in the air into a Princely bow, slightly stumbling already, only one mixer and three shots in, “didn’t see you there. Oh, what, this? Why, yes, this is a new shirt, you’re totally right. What’s that? It would look better, off?!”

“Wow...!” Minho snorted, unable to hold his sniggers in.

“And then we make out passionately for three hours in the hot tub and he asks me to be his boyfriend. The end.”

“Geez, Sung. What happened to your romantic streak?” Minho said, shaking his head whilst pouring Felix another shot.

“I said ‘passionately’?” he grinned, bundling his cheeks up into his smile.

He suddenly yanked Minho up to his feet, nearly causing the older man to bumble over his computer chair, clasping his left hand around Minho’s right, and slipping his other hand around his back, looking proud of himself.

They started tango dancing aggressively across the room, _with meaning_ , Jisung stopping to barely dip him, nearly collapsing into a heap over Felix’s _Ryan_ plushie as their slightly tipsy, laughter-filled states were causing Jisung to lose his sense of strength.

They all did another shot, this one burning significantly more than the others, and even Minho ended up nearly gagging, coughing away the pain. He took a swig of the white wine, straight out of the bottle, as a chaser, and Jisung was in awe of how awesome he looked doing it. Minho really did have this college thing down, he thought.

Mid pouring another shot, Felix’s head bobbed up.

“Jisung, do you think Chan wants to… _Hook up_ with me?” Felix said, looking up at them, eyes filled with wonderment.

Minho suddenly spat his drink out, splattering the side of Jisung’s face in spit and sauvignon blanc. He was unfortunately, sitting too close to Minho, sewing the repercussions of being in the splash zone…

“What?! Where did that come from?!” Minho asked, his eyes blown open, hand over his mouth.

“Well, you said that he was attracted to me, right, Jisung? Isn’t that what college is about? Maybe… Maybe he does want to.”

The blonde fidgeted nervously, and Jisung could see he was blushing a little, just the tops of his cheeks looking flushed. Jisung remembered that he hadn’t told Minho any of this yet, and suddenly he felt like an awful friend for keeping it a secret.

Not that he was, he just actually _did_ forget to mention it…

“What the hell is going on?! First you’re invited to their party, and now this?!” Minho bellowed.

“Chan has been trying to get to know Felix, that’s all,” Jisung said, with composure, trying not to prod the beast that was Minho when he was annoyed, “it’s not weird considering their backgrounds. I know he’s a little older but—”

“Geez…” Minho’s eyes widened, firstly in what looked like pure horror, then he just sighed and shook it off, returning to take another swig directly from the wine bottle.

“He seems… Nice. He always waves at me when he sees me now, and stops to talk about stuff…” Felix said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he took another sip, “I think… He’s cute.”

“Don’t fall for it, Felix. He’s bad news. I can’t believe I’m even agreeing to go to this thing considering where it is... I must be crazy…” Minho sighed, “or drunk.”

“Oh Min, just admit it. You just want to be there on the day I go to my _first_ college party! I’m honoured that you’d be there for my big special day!” Jisung said, trying to douse the tension with comedy, as he usually did, patting the older man on the back.

“You’re not getting married, Sung!”

“Not _yet_ , but once Hyunjin realises what a _stud_ I am, he’ll be all over me and then who knows?”

“Big words coming from someone with zero experience,” Minho laughed, leaning in closer to him with a grin on his face. Jisung dramatically recoiled, his hand on his chest in feigned offense.

“Excuse you, Sir! Like you’re any better!”

“I’m—I have, experience,” Minho said, slightly quieter than before.

“Since when!? You won’t even give that cute coffee guy the time of day—”

“—I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you mean…” he retorted unexpectedly, and Jisung was sure a part of his brain shut down for a moment. He had no idea what the parts of the brain were, he’d usually ask Minho that kind of stuff; but whatever part of it dealt with shock, had gone in to overdrive.

He looked at him, blinking a few times to clear the slight fuzz. It went deathly silent, as both of the younger men stared at him.

“You—What? What do you mean? S-since when?” Jisung asked, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“Since last year…” the older man responded coolly, trying not to give too much away.

“And you… Didn’t tell me?”

“Why would I…?”

“Because you’re my best friend?!” Jisung exclaimed, raising his voice. He tried not to let the irritation come through in his tone, but he was pretty sure he was fantastically failing at it.

“It was just a… Thing. Nothing to write home about…” He said nonchalantly, setting aside the comment with a shake of his head. No big deal, Sung. I just kind of got bored and wanted to see what the fuss was about. It was, _alright_... Seriously no big deal.”

“Woah…” Felix said, “who was it? Someone from Biology? How did you meet him?”

“Uh, I forget his name, but anyway—” he said, dismissing the topic, a smile finally appearing on his face as he slapped his hands on his knees, clearly wanting to change the subject.

Jisung stared at him, totally dumbfounded, watching as Minho babbled on about something unrelated. His thoughts were clouded. He watched as Minho took another shot and Felix just joined, giggling along, but Jisung was still hung up on it.

Minho had never even dated. He’d never even been _interested_ in anyone. Sure, they discussed who was attractive, but never anything like this. He’d always been the cool, standoffish type that told Jisung his _body was a temple_ , and that when he found someone _worthy_ , that’s when it would happen.

He definitely wasn’t expecting Minho to have a one-night stand with someone out of sheer boredom and curiosity, and he certainly wasn’t expecting to not be told about it, either.

“Come on, _Uber_ ’s ordered, it’ll be here soon. Grab a bag and we’ll take all of this along with us,” Minho said, rising to his feet again.

Jisung nodded along, still a little frazzled.

He figured maybe he was making a bigger deal out of it than it needed to be, but for some reason, it hurt his heart, knowing that he’d kept it from him.

🐱

By the time they’d pulled up in the Uber, the entire road was totally rammed with cars and people. The house was monumental, grey brickwork illuminated by colorful neon lights flashing out of all of the windows. There were two verandas filled with people, picketed white fences and everything. It was like something straight out of a movie.

Jisung could see students mingling out front, smoking and drinking, and people crowding some kind of fight that might’ve just happened, or maybe a dance off… He wasn’t sure. The air was thick and humid, and the music was so loud he could hear the thud of the bass echoing throughout the entire street.

Some burly dude wearing a navy letterman jacket and a baseball cap welcomed them in through the front door. More so, they kind of all _piled_ in with the amount of people who were entering at one time. He didn’t recognise the guy at the door, in fact he’d never even seen most of Chan’s housemates.

The front room seemed to have been stripped of a lot of its furniture. Just nail hangings sticking out where all the photographs had been taken off of the beige walls, and the cushions removed from the brown, leather couches.

The only thing that remained was a large, framed canvas of a bunch of the frat in suits, posing with the college’s Chancellor above the fireplace. In the centre of the photo, the person looked like Chan, but older.

They wandered through the various rooms off of the hall, peering in to every little corner for signs of people they knew. Each room was jam-packed with people, some dancing, some making out, some of the doors were even locked. It felt so intense, the music blaring so loudly it made Jisung feel a little nervous. 

“Right, I’ve broken the seal so I’m gonna go to the—I mean, _find_ the bathroom, then I’m going to hide outside until this nightmare is over,” Minho shouted across the music, nodding, immediately pulling past a group of people. Felix lunged forward and grabbed on to his arm from behind, tugging him backwards. 

“Shouldn’t we stick together?!” Felix said with a little fear in his tone, “I’ve never been to one of these things!”

“Right, that’s… That’s a good point.” Minho said, smiling at the blonde, clearly sensing his anxieties, “is your phone on?” Minho asked him calmly, trying to soothe him.

Jisung looked tentatively around the new room they'd made their way in to, there were so many people in just this front sitting room alone. His heart was pounding; a mixture of excitement, fear and the mess of alcohol in his system. All three of the couches were filled with people sitting on them, on or the back of them, or piled across the people sitting on them… Everyone seemed familiar, like they’d been here before.

He had no idea what to do with himself, until he heard a voice sound.

“Jisung! Hey, over here!”

“Hey, Hyunjin!” He called back, staring at the beauty of a man waving at him from across the room, wrapped in a grey sweater with a floral-patterned blazer overtop. He was sitting in the corner of the room at a white, fold-up table and some re-purposed wooden keg crates that some others were using as stools to sit on.

“Wow, look at you, out of a hoodie, for once. You look good! What’re you drinking?” He asked politely, summoning him over.

“Oh, just, this,” Jisung responded, cautiously pulling the bottle of vodka out of his bag.

“Shit, did you drink all that?!” Hyunjin asked, almost seemingly impressed.

“No, I drank it with Minho and Felix, at the dorm!”

The two other boys followed him across to the circle of people, awkwardly standing behind him as Hyunjin waved to both of them, too.

“Shame you weren’t there Hyunjin, would’ve been… Cool, to see you, there! Because, you… Live there!” Jisung said, nodding along, acting as confident as he could, spurred along by a little Dutch courage.

“Awh, well, you know me. I pretty much unofficially live _here_ ,” Hyunjin replied, rolling his eyes, “So, Felix, and Lee Minho, huh?” he cranked his head around, smiling at the other two men standing behind him, and Felix smiled with all his teeth on show. Minho on the other hand, just nodded, which was more than Jisung actually expected, anyway. “Do Jisung, Felix and Lee Minho want to get in on this game of _Kings_?”

“S-sure!” Felix said enthusiastically, nodding along and looking towards Minho for some affirmation.

“Actually, I’m gonna go to the bathroom, play the first round without me,” Minho said, patting Felix on the back.

He swiftly pushed his way back through the sweaty bodies in the crowded front room, and Jisung watched him hurriedly exit up the stairs. His eyes followed him for a moment, before Hyunjin started talking to him again.

“Did you see Seungmin, on your way here?” Hyunjin asked, pouring himself a glass of some kind of brown liquid into his red, plastic cup.

“Oh, I think he was just… I think he was in the sitting room, studying…”

“Oh… That’s weird because he was invi—

“What up, fuckers!” a cheerful voice came again, and everyone turned to attention to face the direction it came from.

 _Chan_ waltzed over, wearing a loose black muscle tee and a black cap; colorful as ever. His eyes lined with ashen-grey shadow in a way that made him look kind of intimidating, with two expensive-looking silver hoops hanging from his ears.

The atmosphere totally changed as soon as he strolled across, it was almost like he was parting the red sea. Everyone immediately started whooping and shouting, and three or four of the other guys got up to give him hugs and _bro-shakes_.

“Hey, Jisung, you made it! Where’s Fe—” He stopped in his tracks, looking straight across the way at Felix, who was settling into a space in the circle, suddenly halting when he saw him.

Jisung watched how they clocked each other, the peculiar tension between them.

Chan was definitely into him, no doubt about it. It didn’t help that Felix looked good, tonight. Way better than Jisung had ever seen him; he’d even had to double-take, himself.

Skin-tight black jeans with rips in the knees, a rust-colored turtleneck, and a single silver choker overtop of the neckline, to match his one, singular silver earring. He’d definitely put some effort in; Jisung could only imagine why...

“Okay, everyone! Basic _Ring of Fire_ , all the standard rules apply, but we’ll read ‘em out as they come for the newbies!” Bambam interrupted, whacking a hand down on to Jisung’s shoulder with a menacing grin across his face.

He shuffled all the cards in his hand, before spreading them in a circle around the pitcher in the centre.

Jisung couldn’t remember all of the rules of the game as it went along, that was for sure. Every time you picked up a card, there was a new one, and he was already pretty drunk before they’d even started.

He knew that _10_ was _Categories_ , because that’s what he’d pulled. Felix pulled the _King_ – meaning he had to pour a considerable amount of his drink into _the pitcher of death_ , as Jisung was referring to it, as.

They’d tried their best to grimace through the pain of their drinks, opting to mix them this time with some juice from the kitchen, rather than drinking straight vodka like back at the dorm…

The second time around, Jisung picked out a number _8_ , which apparently meant ‘ _mate_ ’. The card meant that a person of his choice had to drink whenever he did, but he felt way too shy to choose Hyunjin, so obviously he picked Felix, instead, much to the delight of Chan, who’s turn it was next.

Chan picked out a _Jack_ , and the entire circle erupted in to ‘ _oh_ ’s and ‘ _ah’_ s!’ as a wicked, mischievous smile appeared on his face.

“Rulemaster! I get to make a rule, anyone who violates the rule, has to drink their entire drink in one go,” Chan announced to the group, clapping his hands together.

“Oh God, Channie. Go easy on us, this time,” Bambam joked, throwing his head backwards and groaning into the air, “I don’t want to take my clothes o—

“Rule is, next time you finish your drink. You have to kiss someone in the circle, alright?”

The entire ensemble of ten-or-so people started babbling along, before agreeing to his terms, and Felix’s eyes immediately met Jisung’s, a tinge of panic swirling in his sparkling iris’.

“But, obviously, don’t be weird about it or anything!” Chan added, “no one has to kiss any of their housemates or dormmates! I’m not making out with Bambam!” He laughed, and everyone hooted along with him like parrots mimicking their owner.

Jisung swallowed; he was about three mouthfuls away from finishing his drink, and worse than that, Hyunjin was _technically_ his dormmate, so did that mean he couldn’t kiss him?

The only opportunity he might actually get to kiss Hyunjin, and it was whisked away before he even got the chance to blame it on the game as an excuse if he got monumentally rejected.

He looked around the circle, at the potential suiters that he may have to kiss. Everyone was fairly attractive, but no one really compared to Hyunjin. He was on a different level altogether.

If Minho were here, he’d have competition, but he was… _Still,_ in the bathroom, he guessed.

Actually, he’d been in the bathroom for multiple pulls… _He must be avoiding people,_ Jisung thought, suddenly remembering that he hadn’t seen him in a while in his drunken stupor.

A few more rounds of mindlessly throwing their thumbs down on the table, and listing off various rhyming words, and Hyunjin placed his cup down next to him. Out of nowhere, one of the other boys _announced_ to the circle that he’d finished his drink, making him look a little flustered.

Jisung’s throat instantly went dry, and it wasn’t just from the vodka draining all the fluids from his body. They all looked around the circle, and Hyunjin finally agreed to it, huffing comedically and flipping his hair back away from his eyes. He scanned around the circle, wriggling his pointer finger, his eyes squinting, before they fell on _him_.

Hyunjin was looking and pointing, _directly_ at him. He felt like his soul was escaping his body.

There was no way…

“I know I live in the same dorm, but since I practically live _here_ anyway… I guess I’ll kiss… Jisung!” he said happily, tilting his head to the side, smiling across at him.

He rose to his feet and shimmied forward across the circle, slinking over into his space, careful not to ruin the few remaining cards in the ring in the centre. Jisung put his drink down immediately on the table, as the taller man bumbled across, placing his hand on the edge and leaning over him. He didn’t know if he was meant to refuse it, or accept it, or even say anything, for that matter. Maybe he should like, put his hands—

Hyunjin suddenly pressed his mouth against Jisung’s; his plush lower lip thrusting against his, with a little force as he surged forward into it, jerking Jisung back. Luckily, he didn’t lose his balance considering how tipsy he felt.

It was fast, and there was barely even any movement involved, just the slight tilt of heads between them. Jisung was so shocked he almost forgot to close his eyes, until they finally quivered shut, and he accepted the last few seconds that he _wasn’t_ totally gobsmacked, by moving his lips in unison to taste him.

Before he knew it, it was over, and he was staring at Hyunjin’s pretty, jovial face, inches away from his own as he pulled back. He tried to play it off coolly, laughing along with everyone else throughout the rest of the time, but internally he was in absolute tatters, his heart beating out of his chest.

He had to remind himself to thank Minho for letting them come here.

Felix finally finished his drink, but either fortunately, or unfortunately, as the other Australian man lovingly stared at him from across the circle, Bambam picked another _Jack_ , and was appointed the new Rulemaster. The change in system essentially making Chan’s previous rule about kissing someone in the circle, totally redundant.

The older man swiftly lunged forward, taking _the pitcher of death_ , and swigging it down, pouring it down his throat without even so much as a shudder. Everyone else in the circle gave him a round of applause, before a louder song started blaring out of the speakers and everyone’s attention was pulled from the game.

“Now that the game’s over, why don’t we all mingle, or dance, huh?” Chan said, clapping his hands together, dispersing the group of people in a barrage of laughs. Jisung prepared himself to grab Felix and wander off and find Minho, to give him the good news about Hyunjin, but he was stopped, with a hand against his arm.

“Jisung, sorry, can I borrow Felix, for a sec?” Chan asked, looking at him, and then smiling across at the other Australian, who was looking back in total awe.

“Yeah, totally, where are we going?” Jisung responded.

“I meant, like, alone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as per usual, i tried to condense this but i guess i cannot write anything short and concise for the life of me....
> 
> wonder what's going on? who's missing?  
> minho and changbin????  
> jeongin and seungmin???
> 
> HMMMMMMMMMMMMM
> 
> thank you for reading <3
> 
> Bird app @YfwbbS <3


	9. That Night, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // sexual assault (almost)

🐱

Minho didn’t know the name of the guy he was kissing.

Actually, he very well might be about to have a threesome.

He had no idea who the guy was that had him pushed up against a door and had his hands basically down the front of his pants in one random, unlocked bedroom.

He had no idea who the other guy was, either.

It was sudden, and his memory was a little hazy.

He was waiting in the huge line for the bathroom, before he glanced down over the banister to see Changbin arriving through the front door, taking the keys in his hands, all in his leathers. He’d said something about going on a ‘drinks run’.

Then, he’d come up the stairs, asking around if anyone had seen _Hyunjin_ ; Jisung’s pretty crush.

Minho had thoroughly planned in his head what he would say if he saw Changbin in the _Uber_ ride here, but it all spectacularly went out of the window in an instant, and he felt like he was about to throw his own heart up.

He had darted into a different bedroom to hide, just to ensure he wouldn’t be seen as Changbin was walking towards the direction of his bedroom, straight towards him.

His chest was thumping. Changbin hadn’t even _seen_ him, too preoccupied with the party and asking around for his new _someone._

It still hurt, it probably always would.

At least one thing was for sure, it meant that Jisung wouldn’t end up going home with his crush.

Not that he was jealous, about Jisung having a crush, or making headway with his crush, or anything. He just hated the idea that this guy was entangled with the people that hurt him. He didn’t want the same fate for Jisung, or Felix, for that matter.

He wasn’t alone in the bedroom when he turned around to look at himself in the mirror. His pulse was so accelerated in his ears he hadn’t even heard the three guys who were lounging around in the room. One of them was smoking out of the window, and the other two were sprawled out on the double bed, swigging _Jack Daniels_ , neat.

He recognised them, from when he used to come here a few months back, but so many people lived in this house, that names escaped him. 

“Hey, Minho, right?” one had said to him, offering him the drink nonchalantly, which he took willingly, “haven’t seen you around the house in a while, you still got a thing with Bin?”

“No, I haven’t,” he said, firmly, “and trust me, I’m over all that shit.” 

Before he knew it, he was swigging despondently out of the bottle, sat on the bed with his legs crossed with three guys he didn’t even know, whilst Felix and Jisung cavorted downstairs with people he hated, and Changbin was probably fucking some freshman into his mattress.

Roll on twenty minutes, and one of the guys was all over him, feeling up his thigh, pressing the palm of his hand under the back of his loosened shirt as he sat.

It didn’t bother him to begin with. In fact, he accepted it all at the start, the interest he was getting from both of them. He almost kind of wanted the attention after how shitty Changbin had made him feel.

He wanted it.

Until he didn’t.

🐶

Chan was the next person up the stairs. Everyone, and he means _everyone_ , knew that his room was always off limits.

He wandered up, Felix following closely behind, smiling to a few people on the stairs in apology for barging past them.

He was so _polite_ and _endearing_ , it was something that Chan wasn’t really used to.

They wandered into his room, one with a no entry sign across it. He allowed Felix to follow in behind him, and hit the light, illuminating the room. He turned to look at the blonde, he was slightly dazzled and maybe a little out-of-breath but generally in good spirits, like he always was.

Chan slipped his fingers into his pockets, feeling more tense than he’d ever let on.

No freshman had ever made him nervous, like Felix did.

It was quiet in Chan’s room, and it was the furthest away in the hall. He could still hear the thud of the bass downstairs, but it felt mellow and muted, acting like a stillness filler.

The blonde man started slowly wandering around the room, looking at his trophies, his collectibles, his assortment of polaroid photos across a silver grate that was mounted on the wall. All of his certificates stuck to the back of his ensuite door, and Felix took his time, in comfortable silence, to look at them.

“This is your room, I assume?” Felix said, smiling back at him. He placed his bottle of probably luke-warm, white wine down on the side, to focus his full attention on Chan’s things.

Chan felt an onslaught of butterflies in his stomach, not quite understanding how on earth he was even going to broach wooing Felix. Luckily for him, the other man spoke again.

“Is this your sister?” Felix asked, pointing to a photo. It was them at a dance showcase, from when Chan had taken dancing lessons. He didn’t want to tell him it was ballet, though something told him that Felix would be one of the few people that wouldn’t care.

“Yeah, it is. Anyway, so… Felix…” he said, slipping up closer to the younger man, his hands still in his pockets. He angled his body to slightly lean towards him and grab his attention, forcing Felix’s eyes away from the family photographs.

“Mmm-hmm?”

“Enjoying yourself, tonight?”

“Yeah, it’s been fun! I don’t really do this kind of stuff, usually, so I’m trying to go outside of my comfort zone, I guess,” he beamed. “What did you want to show me?”

“Oh, just… This.” He gestured over to a large cardboard box, still covered in brown packing tape, “It’s like, one of my Mom’s care packages that she sends over from Aus, so it’s filled with like, _Jumpys_ … and _Cheezels_ and these _Freddo_ bars, see?"

“Your parents must be super proud of you…” Felix said wishfully, looking back to stare up at the photos, tracing his fingers over a photo of his family outside the Royal Botanic Garden.

“W-what?”

“Your parents, your Dad is that guy in the photo downstairs, too right? You have all these trophies, and everyone knows who you are,” Felix responded.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Everyone talks about you like you’re a big deal. In fact, people say you’re even, kind of _scary_ , or something,” Felix said, looking back to him, “but I don’t think you are. Or at least, I hope you’re not.” 

“Well, I mean…” he started, awkwardly looking off to the ceiling, “you’re probably gonna hear a lot of that, about me and Changbin especially…”

“Why?”

“Uh, well… Just…”

_Because it’s true._

“Just because. Don’t believe every little thing you hear, that’s all. Rumors fly around a place like this…” he said despondently, running his hand through his hair.

“Is… Is everything okay?” Felix asked him, with genuine concern in his eyes.

“Yeah, everything’s good. I just…” he sighed, trying to think of something to say, but falling short, “To be honest, Felix. This isn’t really about the care package thing. I’ve just kind of wanted to… Get you alone, for a while. I know that sounds weird because we haven’t really known each other a long time or anything but, I just...”

“I kind of… Had a little suspicion. I think that’s really sweet of you, Chris,” Felix replied, and Chan was sure his heart skipped a beat at the casual introduction of his English name, “sometimes I get tired of speaking Korean all the time so it’s nice to be able to talk to someone, too.”

“I know this sounds weird but, when I saw you… With that cake… Just… Wow,” he laughed.

“The cake? Wow, you really like food, huh?!" Felix giggled tipsily, swatting him on the arm, “I mean, if you just want cookies and stuff you can always ask, I don’t mi—"

“—No, no, it’s like… I can’t really explain it but…”

Felix cocked his head a little bit to the side, smiling sweetly, to nudge him to finish his sentence. His brain was fogged with alcohol and having Felix in front of him felt different.

Before tonight, he’d told Changbin that he wanted nothing more than to get Felix into his bed, but for some reason, he just felt like something had shifted inside of him, and he had no clue how to even explain it.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” He said, suddenly.

 _Fuck, he should not have said that_.

_What the fuck was he thinking?!_

_Felix barely even knew him, and here he was being a total weirdo._

“I mean, not like soul mates _per se,”_ he scrambled, “but maybe just like people meet for a reason—"

“Of course! There’s someone for everyone, I think. I don’t think just romantically either. I think we’re destined to meet the people that we’re friends with, too! Like when I met Jisung here, and Minho.”

Chan’s eyes widened in relief, he let his shoulders fall just a little. It wasn’t _exactly_ what he’d wanted to hear but at least he wasn’t looking at him like he was crazy.

“I like the idea that there’s certain people that we have to meet,” Felix continued, before he started giggling again, “sorry, I think this drinking stuff has made me a little bit crazy, I don’t really know what I’m saying!” he said.

The younger landed down on the bed, sitting on the edge of it, poised and polite, as usual, even through his tipsiness. He shook his head from side-to-side, and gently slapped the side of his cheek.

“No, no! Not at all! You’re cute when you’re talkative!” Chan said, immediately following him down to sit next to him.

“R-really?” he said, bowing slightly to try to hide his gratitude again.

“So, you _do_ believe in soulmates? You’re not just saying so because I said it first?” Chan asked.

“No!” Felix giggled back, “of course not!”

“Promise?”

“Promise!”

Felix propped up his pinkie finger, offering it out as a pledge, and Chan immediately twisted his own around it, gently shaking it up and down.

The closeness, the proximity of Felix was driving him insane. If it were any other person, on his bed, they wouldn’t just be sitting here, like this, for much longer.

“And what’s your opinion on this…” he murmured, fingers still wrapped around the younger man’s, as he pulled him slightly closer in, “say, two people who were born in the same city on the other side of the world, somehow end up in the same college together, in a totally different country, out of chance?”

“Well, I mean that would be… You mean like… _Oh._ Like, _us_ , you mean?” Felix responded, and Chan saw him swallow, a little embarrassment peeking through, evident in the rosy colour of his cheeks.

“Yeah… Us.”

The urge took over him.

Chan promptly closed the space between them, sliding his palm slowly under the younger man’s jaw; threading his fingers under the blonde hair near his ear to pull him in closer. He pressed his lips against Felix’s’, tasting the white wine he’d been drinking before against his plush lower lip.

They kissed for a few seconds, before Felix delicately placed his hand against the older man’s chest, gently pushing him backwards.

“Woah… I— Um...” Felix stammered nervously, the tiny fragment of a smile peeking through as he looked around the room.

“Oh, sorry, I just…” Chan mumbled, trying to make sense of it all; he’d never had someone pull away from a kiss, before.

“No, it’s okay! I’m just… Surprised, I guess!” Felix said, frantically shaking his hands out in front of him defensively, as if not to _hurt his feelings_ , or something, “I don’t mind that you kissed me, it’s just… Not a lot of people are really too interested in me, or anything like that, usually! It’s kind of, new.”

“That’s crazy talk. I’m sure everyone wants to kiss you. How could they not? Look at you…” Chan responded, his voice still a little reckless sounding as he licked over his bottom lip.

“I don’t know, I guess, no one has ever really said that they want to—”

“—Well, I want to. Can I, kiss you again?” Chan said, trying to hide how desperately he needed him through his heightened senses.

Having to ask for permission felt strange, usually he relied on body language, but Felix was someone he couldn’t quite comprehend. 

“Oh. I m-mean. I g-guess so?”

Chan immediately seized the opportunity, and lunged forward, kissing him with slightly more vigor this time, pulling the younger man’s neck closer to angle him against his lips. There was more passion this time, the older man’s needs taking over as he pressed against him.

As soon as he parted his mouth to slide his tongue into the younger mans’, Felix backed away again, panting lightly against his mouth.

“Is this, is this _right?_ Aren’t we meant to go on like, a date first?” he stuttered, his eyes looking back up to meet Chan’s in a way that looked so sincerely confused, it made Chan’s head spin.

He recoiled, just slightly. He was trying to be as delicate as he knew how to pretend to be, but he’d almost forgotten that this wasn’t the same kind of conquest as usual…

“Okay, well… Do you want to? Like, go on a date, with me?” Chan asked, floundering slightly, his voice almost breaking at the offer. He couldn’t remember the last time he took someone on a legitimate date.

He didn’t respond for a moment, before he suddenly felt Felix grasp on to his hand.

“Sure, I’d love to, Chris.”

🐱

Jisung bobbed around in the front room, vaguely talking to people he’d met in his classes. He wanted an excuse to head through into the kitchen to hang out with Hyunjin again, but he decided maybe it was best to play it cool. He was standing around like a loner, as per usual, with Minho hiding out somewhere upstairs, and Felix and Chan having… Whatever it is, they were having.

He was a little nervous about it, in all honesty.

He thought Chan was a decent enough person, but he also knew that Minho _got_ people; he knew what made them tick. He was observant, level-headed, and he’d warned them both of Chan.

He just had to hope that Felix was mature enough to handle it; there was no way he could even try and interfere even if he wanted to.

This was Chan’s house, after all.

He suddenly saw Seungmin burst through the front door, looking weirdly _gothic_ compared to usual as all eyes turned on him.

He and Seungmin had spoken a few times, and he seemed to be interested in the same bands, which was neat. Jisung figured that he’d probably scout Hyunjin out, too, so he immediately made his way across the room to say hi.

He didn’t notice the quiet kid (who more than likely a CIA agent or some kind of spy), walk in with him, both of them already with drinks in their hands. Jisung was sure this guy was still a kid, but there he was, dressed all in black, shirt unbuttoned basically down to his stomach, swigging from the bottle.

The kid was a lot of buffer than maybe the rest of his dorm had given him credit for… But to be honest he barely even saw the kid outside of the corner of the dorm living room where the coffee machine was…

They both headed through to the kitchen, and Jisung ducked in behind them, trying to tag along, before he saw _him_ appear through the white, sliding back doors _._

The scary bike guy, dressed in his regular leathers, smirking as someone let him in.

He sauntered in through the back porch, four white plastic bags in either hand, clinking and rattling around. He had a grin on his face as he set it down loudly on the counter and a swarm of people came over to take the free drinks he was offering out, four of them from Hyunjin’s ‘group’ that were surrounding him.

It left him on his own, but Jisung could tell that the biker guy, kind of wanted that.

He watched as he unzipped himself, smirking, promptly heading over in to Hyunjin’s direction, and luckily for Jisung, he turned away, uninterested.

 _Thank God_ , Jisung thought. If _this_ was Hyunjin’s type, he didn’t stand a chance.

🐶

“Holy… Seungmin?!” Hyunjin exclaimed, his mouth falling wide open at the sight of Seungmin in a tight-fitting black button-up, loosened to the third button, with a black leather jacket over top. 

His hair was _jet black_ , and pushed away from his forehead, a little grey eyeshadow outlining his lower waterline and the edges of his lids.

He looked, kind of incredible.

“Oh, yeah, hey Jinnie. How’s it going?” he slurred nonchalantly, bounding into the kitchen with pretty much his entire bodyweight colliding against the kitchen counter island next to him.

“Are you… Are you drunk?” Hyunjin asked, a little bit entertained by the whole thing. He brushed some of Seungmin’s messy bangs out of his eyes, before he felt his roommate bat it away, almost missing his hand through his state.

“Yeah, Jeongin and I came here because we got bored of drinking back at the dorm so we thought we’d check it out…” he sighed, “it’s alright.”

“Jeongin…? You guys are, friends?” Hyunjin asked.

“Well, yeah, we’ve been hanging out a lot. Not that you’d know that, ‘cause you practically live here, now…” he scoffed, wrapping his arms around himself, “but no big deal, we have fun.”

“Seung…” Hyunjin said, gripping on to his arm.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I thought I’d just come here, lay low, hang out, do drinking, you know… All those… Words,” he hiccupped, waving his hand around in the air as his eyes failed to meet Hyunjin’s.

“Right. And _where is_ Jeongin, then?”

“He’s right beh-ind nme— Wait… Jeongin?” Seungmin said, desperately glancing around.

Jeongin had disappeared. That, or Seungmin had lost him on the way to the party and he was never there in the first place.

“Well, well… What’s this? Sweater Guy has a bit of a wild side, huh? Who have thought?” Changbin suddenly said, making his way chauvinistically across the kitchen to where they both were, “damn, the jacket, it’s nice, real?”

“Thank you. It’s uh, it’s not mine but I like it…” Seungmin stuttered back, his eyes fluttering around in his drunken stupor. 

“It looks good. Didn’t know you drank, Sweater.” Changbin joked, and Hyunjin totally failed to hide how irritated it made him when Changbin leaned forward to feel the material against Seungmin’s arm. Hyunjin’s eyes snapped back to him immediately, boring holes into the side of his head.

“Yeah, what of it? I drink, and stuff...” Seungmin slurred, throwing his head back with a _tssch_.

“What’s the ‘ _and stuff’_?” Changbin teased, sucking his lower lip in to his mouth obnoxiously like he always did, looking him up and down.

“Tha-t’s none of your b-business! Anyway, it’s been fun, but I need to find Jeo-Jeongin before he ends up on the n-ews!” Seungmin said, shooting Hyunjin the cutest little goodbye salute, nearly crashing into Hoodie Guy on the way out.

He immediately turned back around to Changbin, who was laughing softly into the air at the sight of him.

“You are not serious,” Hyunjin snapped, “keep your brooding ass away from Seungmin, I mean it.”

“Why? Scared I’ll corrupt him?” he teased, his voice low and raspy as he peered up under his cap, “Or are you just, jealous, pretty boy?”

“Jealous, please. That’s ridiculous!”

Hyunjin pulled his arms tightly around himself, locking them over his chest and looking off towards the door in frustration. Changbin slowly snaked his hands around either side of his waist, yanking him closer in one swift movement, tugging his head back around.

“Whatever. Don’t worry, you still look better…”

“I don’t care about looking b—”

“Fancy a trip to the roof?” Changbin said, pulling his gold tobacco tin out of his back pocket, holding it up inches in front of him and waving it around, “or are you scared Channie will catch you, this time?”

“I’m not scared of Chan finding out I smoke pot; I’m worried about him finding out about—”

“Our kiss?” Changbin said smugly, his hands returning to the younger man’s waist and travelling lower down his body.

“Ew, don’t say it like that, you make it sound like it was some big deal. Which it wasn’t!” Hyunjin replied, immediately unlatching his hands and hoisting Changbin’s fingers off of his back.

“Whatever, you gonna smoke with me, or not?”

Hyunjin stared at him; there it was again, that _challenge_ that he couldn’t refuse no matter how much he desperately tried.

He knew he shouldn’t.

He absolutely shouldn’t.

But of course, _he did._

He let Changbin lead him out of the room, trying to act as casual as possible as to not let anyone on. He saw Hoodi—Jisung, giving him doe eyes from across the room, before he slipped out past them.

Hyunjin felt bad for the kid; his crush on him was fairly obvious, and Hyunjin pretty much exacerbated it earlier on when he kissed him. He just didn’t want to kiss any of Changbin’s housemates, especially Bambam… He couldn’t kiss Channie in a million years, and Felix was off of the table, according to Chan.

So Jisung was his only tangible choice.

He gave him an apologetic look, before slipping out, even though he was pretty sure that Jisung, in his tipsy, puppy-love state, had attempted to follow them upstairs, acting as if he was heading that direction, anyway…

🐱

“Hey, take it easy, this isn't my shirt,” Minho said against the guy’s lips, who was grinding his hips down against him, pushing him closer to the wall, “just, feels kind of rough.”

“I bet someone quiet like you secretly like it like that, though, right?” the guy said, harshly pulling away from his lips before reaching around and grabbing his ass in both hands, his lips coming back to meet his. He could feel the rough stubble scratching against his jaw as one of the other guys started chuckling under his breathe.

Minho looked over to him from where he was propped up on his elbow on the bed, finishing off his bottle of whatever it was. He pushed himself up, too, pulling his phone out of his back pocket and pointing it in his direction.

“Wha-what’re you doing?” Minho asked, head being jolted to the side by the force of the other guy lapping at his neck like a dog in heat.

“Filming you,” the guy said, laughing, pushing himself up to his knees on the bed before stepping off of it messily, stumbling a little.

“W-why?” Minho choked out.

“Cause you’re hot.”

“I mean, t-thanks? But I don’t think—”

He felt the guy who was on him suddenly wrap his fingers around his belt at the front, yanking him closer.

“You ever had a threesome, pretty boy?” he asked, his hot breath drowning his senses.

There it was. His breath hitched immediately, his eyes darting open at the use of the nickname he used to hate being called. He pushed back away from the guy a little, which was met with him yanking his face back to look at him and kissing him again.

“Yuyoung, take my phone,” the other guy said, making his way across to them, and tossing his phone casually to the third guy near the window, “I’m gonna want to watch this one back...”

The other guy immediately pulled his own shirt off, throwing it across the other side of the room.

Minho’s mind started racing, his mouth suddenly dry. Before he could even try and say anything in his drunken daze, he was snapped back to reality at the feeling of his own belt being yanked _open_ and off by the other guy. His body was jolting from side-to-side at the sheer strength of him, who was definitely heavier set than he was.

A horrific feeling took over as he started kissing him again.

He suddenly wondered if pushing back or declining the invitation, would make it worse, or if he should just let it happen.

So, he kissed back, screwing his eyes shut.

That was, until he heard the sound of someone calling out his name from the hallway.

He immediately yanked his head to the side at the voice, to shout as closely towards the door as possible, so that someone could hear him through the wood over the sound of the music downstairs.

“I’m in here!” he yelled out, trying to make it sound as casual as possible, even though on the inside he was terrified beyond belief of how the other guys might respond.

“Woah, woah, hey…” the guys murmured, “Come on now baby? We don’t want anyone intruding on this, now, do we?” He spoke closely, into his ear, sliding his hand up the bottom of his shirt, and Minho pushed him backwards with his hand.

“That’s—That’s my friend, he’ll be wondering where I am,” he stuttered out.

Suddenly the door was pushed forward, and Minho was knocked against it.

It was Jisung.

“Sungie!” Minho called out, immediately yanking his shirt down.

“Min?” he said, shoving his head in through the door, “Oh, shit! I’m—Sorry, did I inter—I’m so sorry!” he stuttered, his eyes becoming wide.

Minho looked at him, a slither of fear cutting through.

He _knew_ Jisung, and he hoped Jisung knew him well enough to understand that he needed to _get out of this room_. His eyes opened, his pupils constricted in panic, and it seemed that what needed to be said, had gotten in to Jisung’s thick skull.

“Fucking hell... You don’t just walk in on someone...” the other guy said. Minho felt the man’s hand slip behind his back again, pulling him closer to his side.

He was swept up in a moment of panic and decided that enough was enough. Whilst the guy was looking at Jisung, he bucked away from him, smashing his head forward. The sudden movement cracked the guy in the nose, making him lose his footing and stumble backwards, his body hunched over in pain.

“Fuck! My fucking nose!” he screamed, holding on to it with both hands. The other guy immediately checked on him, before staring back at Minho with fury in his eyes.

Minho grabbed Jisung by the wrist, forgetting about his belt, and immediately sped out of the room, crashing down the stairs, dragging him down behind.

He heard the sound of the other guy behind him, screaming at him from above.

“Changbin said you were a fucking tease!”

They darted down, pushing past all of their annoyed classmates, and squeezing through the tight hallways filled with students kissing against the walls.

People screamed at them as they shoved past and Jisung looked around remorsefully, apologising and bowing as they rushed through into the kitchen. Minho finally barged through the white, sliding doors, out into the cool air outside, only letting go of Jisung’s wrist when he felt the wind touch his face.

He immediately slumped down, hands on his knees as he leaned over to let go of the breath he was holding on to. 

“Minho what the hell?! What was going on in there?!” Jisung screamed at him in confusion.

“I’m so sorry..." the older man choked out, tears starting to swell out of his tear ducts, "I lied to you, earlier. Please forgive me," he said, abruptly bursting in to sobs, before he threw himself in to his best friends’ arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i was in two minds about posting this!!!
> 
> i've been trying to keep morale up and posting positive things on twitter to allow the ridiculous 'hj scandal' shit to blow over as quickly as possible. we all know hj and stray kids didn't deserve this and yesterday i couldn't even write because i felt so anxious and sick about it all. today i considered we should try and continue best we can and stay positive, so i decided to keep up with my schedule in the hopes that my stories can be a good distraction for anyone who needs it. 
> 
> even if this chapter was slightly ill timed because it's a little triggering and maybe the most emotional one yet... 😬 so i'm sorry about the unfortunate subject matter coinciding with the current events! 
> 
> keep streaming Hyunjin's 꼬마별, watch his fancams and buy his jiniret merch. keep supporting him quietly and we'll get through this! 
> 
> <3 thank you for reading this has been an emotional post from a melancholic hag who is in mental disarray!!!
> 
> bird app: @YfwbbS


	10. That Night, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is absolutely HONKING i am so sorry about the length, but i just couldn't bring myself to make FOUR CHAPTERS OF THE SAME PARTY ASDJFHADHJAS

🐶

“Fuck, careful, I don’t wanna die here. I always imagined I’d die in some gang fight, or something,” Changbin scoffed, holding his hands out in front of him to try and steady himself as Hyunjin stumbled out on to the roof space behind him.

“Gang fight… Whatever, _chaebol heir_ …” Hyunjin sighed, laughing at him, slumping down on to the pillow he’d carried out with him.

“Pfft,” Changbin scoffed, pulling his tin out again, and taking the joint to his lips.

The air was fresh, and Changbin’s room was at the easterly side of the house, making it pretty far away from the main street. They could still hear the music from downstairs, but it was a muted kind of hum, now. The back garden could be seen just in view, but up here, it felt serene.

Hyunjin didn’t know what he kept doing to find himself in these situations with Changbin, but here they were, once again.

He watched as Changbin immediately sparked up, and Hyunjin’s stomach recoiled a little just remembering the last time he’d gotten kind of drunk before smoking weed. He was sure it was a bad idea, but Changbin always liked to challenge him, and it wasn’t a fight he’d be willing to lose.

They passed it between them for a while, Hyunjin wincing at the burn every time he took a toke.

It was a little more potent than before, less tobacco to fill it out. He’d roached it, and used regular papers, and it was obvious to him that this was probably a higher amount than Hyunjin would be used to smoking.

Bizarrely, Changbin was calmer than usual, away from the buzz of the party. By this point, Hyunjin was almost expecting him to pounce, though it would be difficult to on a literal roof. By his fourth or fifth toke, he was sitting looking up at the sky, arms hovering across his knees which were folded against his chest.

He turned back to look at him, his melancholic look suddenly replaced with a smirk.

“We gonna smoke in silence then, baby?”

 _There it was,_ Hyunjin thought, taking the joint back to his lips.

“Alright, fine. I’ll bite. Seeing as I’m curious.” Hyunjin said, exhaling into the air, “so, what could a five-foot-nothing like you possibly have that scares so many people here, huh?” Hyunjin asked, keeping his tone fairly light-hearted, but he did genuinely want to know what made him tick.

“Ignoring that height comment, pretty boy. My Dad’s just, he’s a kind of a big deal alumni; he’s a benefactor too, so I pretty much do whatever the fuck I want—"

“Money, that’s it?” Hyunjin huffed, looking back off across the skyline, “is that _all_ people need to do well at this place? Some kind of big wig in their family?” Hyunjin scoffed again, exhaling his last toke against the wind, “capitalism.”

“You’re literally wearing Prada, rich boy—"

“—Anyone can be born into money, Changbin. So that’s why no one calls you out on your _way over-the-top flirting_ and you and your bike’s weird mechanophilia?” Hyunjin asked teasingly, looking back to him. Changbin’s regular resting bitch face was replaced by a seemingly genuine smile, as he cocked his eyebrow at the younger man.

“That bike is my baby, and it’s cost more than you’re worth, I can assure you.”

“Doubt it.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. Besides, money doesn’t mean a lot when no one likes you...” Hyunjin said whimsically. It was the bolshiest comment he’d made in front of Changbin so far, and he noticed how the cogs in Changbin’s brain seemed to malfunction for a moment.

Hyunjin rather enjoyed it.

“I guess you ought to know…” Changbin retorted.

“Ha. You seem to like me,” Hyunjin said, arrogantly, before all of the pride he felt for his previous comment was totally ripped from under him at Changbin’s next comment.

“Nah, I just want to rail you. Call it a mission,” he said nonchalantly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“There you go again...” Hyunjin sighed, leaning his head back against his shoulder, all his weight against his hands. He rolled his eyes back to look at the sky above them; he was too tired of fighting Changbin to even bother shouting back, and his vision had started to slow a little.

He leant back fully against the tiles, with his back flush, and Changbin followed, chuckling softly to himself about how he’d managed to shut Hyunjin up with just words, alone.

“Do you seriously think that kind of shit is sexy? Because it’s not… It’s disrespectful. You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Hyunjin asked, dryly.

“My Mom’s dead, but yeah, maybe that’s why I’m such a shit, right? Freud, or something... Psychology…” Changbin laughed, and Hyunjin didn’t quite know how to respond.

“Shit, I… I didn’t—” he turned back to face the older man, who shot him a quick glance out of his periphery.

“Please don’t try and say sorry, it’s fake as fuck. I don’t even really remember her, so you can stomp out the pity party before it even begins, pretty boy. Besides, if my methods _don’t work_ , why are you here?” Changbin scoffed, before grinning at him again.

It was frustratingly attractive.

“You- You have pot…” Hyunjin stammered out in response.

“That all it is? Nothing to do with how you can’t keep your eyes off of me?”

Hyunjin turned to face him fully, leaning back up on to his palms, staring into his eyes, totally unfaltering. His eyes were piercing Changbin’s, the slightest hint of annoyance peeking through.

“Damn pretty boy… You looking at me like that… Geez, we gonna take this inside, or what?” Changbin laughed, leaning in towards him, twisting his lip ring in between his lower teeth again, like he always did.

The younger man leaned in, ghosting over his lips, eyes half-lidded, as he licked over his bottom lip in tandem, trying to rile Changbin up as much as he could, “I choose, or what,” Hyunjin responded resolutely, before smiling with all of his teeth on show.

“You’re really gonna try and make me chase you, huh? Just know I don’t do that, so don’t push your luck!” Changbin shouted after him, as Hyunjin disappeared back in through his window. 

“Pfft. Whatever. I’m gonna get back down and get pizza, I’m already hungry.”

🐱

Minho started hurling up over the wall, his face puffy from a combination of throwing his guts up and sobbing uncontrollably.

There were so many fluids coming from him, Jisung didn’t even really know what to do. He patted his back to try and soothe him, wishing he had worn a hoodie today, so he could wrap Minho up, away from the cold.

“I’m—I’m so sorry Jisungie. I’m so sorry…” he started stammering, hunched over the wall.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jisung said, trying to hold back his grimace. He wasn’t great with vomit, and it was churning his own alcohol-filled stomach just seeing him like this.

He tried to keep a brave face, for the sake of his best friend.

“Jisung, the reason I didn’t tell you about me losing my virginity… It wasn’t because it wasn’t a big deal to me. In fact, it _was_ a big deal. It was a _huge deal_ to me and I’m just… I’m sorry, that I lied to you about it and kept it from you for so long.”

“Lied to me, what are you talking about, Min? That’s not important now, what’s important is that you’re safe from whatever _that_ wa—”

“I liked him. I’d liked the guy for a while, he wasn’t just some one-night thing. I thought we were hitting it off and he…” he pulled his head back, trying to stifle the tears from falling again.

“Minho, it’s okay, please don’t cry—” Jisung interjected.

“He _used_ me. It was all some fucking game to him. We dated—Or at least, I _thought_ we dated, for a few months, but when I wanted to make it _something_ , he said he’d only date me if no one knew about it; something about his parents, or his family or something like that. So, that’s what we did… And I guess I was just… Some secret, for months…”

“Minho… That’s awful,” Jisung said, lowering himself to squat down next to him, wrapping his arms around the older man’s shoulders.

“One day I just got annoyed with it all. I just wanted to be able to hold his hand in public, and have him put his arms around me. I just wanted to _tell everyone_ that he was mine, and he… He couldn’t handle it, and he humiliated me in front of everyone, telling them that I was crazy and delusional about it all, that I was just a one-night thing like everyone else...” his words trailed off again as he coughed through the pain in his chest. 

“Minho, if it hurts, you don’t have to explain it all if it—”

“Chan laughed at me, he told everyone that the only reason that Changbin slept with me in the first place was because ‘ _fucking a virgin’_ was ‘ _the highest honor of their on their house’s tier list’_ … They all cheered about it, all of them. It’s so fucked up. I just… I left, I ran out of there and I never came back here.”

“What… The hell?” Jisung said, trying to imagine the seemingly friendly, popular, Chan that spent much of his own time helping him out and tutoring him, being capable of saying those kinds of things. “That can’t be true, Minho.”

“You used to say all the time that people at high school would look at me and that they found me attractive but… I don’t talk to anyone here, and the one person I actually thought _liked me_ was too fucking embarrassed to even be with me. I fucking hate this place. I used to tell you how amazing college was, and I lied. I’m so sorry,” he said, gripping a hold of Jisung’s hand over his chest, squeezing his fingers. 

“I’m guessing that’s why you didn’t want to come tonight. I’m so sorry Min, if I’d have known I wouldn’t have pushed you to come,” Jisung apologised, threading their fingers together to interlock them. He felt the side of Minho’s head melt into his shoulder.

“—No, I’m sorry. If I’d just have told you the truth from the start... I was just so fucking _embarrassed_. You used to look up to me at school, but I guess...”

“Don’t be embarrassed, Min. You’ve got nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re best friends, right? You can tell me anything,” he peeled the older man’s body back to look at him, cupping either side of his face, and Minho immediately shied away, probably concerned about the state of his bloated eyes and running nose.

“ _Best… Friends_ …” Minho repeated, staring off into the sky, wiping his face against his own shoulder, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m—I’m sorry.”

Jisung felt his jaw clench, watching Minho cough and splutter. It hurt to see him look so vulnerable. 

“That guy, in there… _Changbin_ … You said”, he glanced up to the sky, then back down to lock eyes with the older man, who flinched at the name, “you said… Is it him? With the lip ring, in there? The bike guy—”

Minho’s head fell to his chest in defeat, and he slowly nodded through his shame, rubbing at his eyes.

“The worst part is, I haven’t lived any of it down. What those guys said to me, in there, about me being a ‘tease’ or whatever. I guess I didn’t put out as quick as his other guys… I’ve heard that, before. That’s why I keep to myself now, it ruined me, in every imaginable way.”

Jisung’s breath hitched, and he turned Minho around and pulled his head against his front, laying the curve of his cheek against his chest bone and sifting his fingers through the older man’s hair. Minho immediately exhaled into the warmth of his body compared to the wind surrounding them, totally ignoring how they were sprawled out over some muddy grass patch out the back of some frat house.

Jisung didn’t even care about whatever was getting on his new shirt.

“I’m gonna get you some water, okay? I’ll just be two seconds, then we can go,” Jisung wrapped his hands around the back of Minho’s jaw to coax them apart, “don’t move, okay?”

“Like I have a choice…” the older man chuckled pathetically.

🐱

Jisung walked in through the patio doors, back in through the sound of the bass throttling his ear drums and people literally drinking shots off of _each other’s bodies_ across the kitchen table.

He noticed Changbin’s looming presence immediately as soon as they waltzed back in the room, Hyunjin just ahead of him.

Jisung had no idea how long Hyunjin and Changbin were up there, but the idea of what might’ve happened was immediately pushed aside, his brain only filled with what this fucker did to Minho.

He couldn’t help but watch him through furrowed brows. The way he pulled up, arrogantly sitting up on the countertop, leaning across the space, shovelling some of the greasy pizza from the box into his mouth, and smirking as he spoke.

Jisung looked at him and _imagined_ it.

The fact that Changbin’s smug, grease-covered lips had kissed Minho’s… The fact that those same smug, grease-covered lips had probably been _all over his body_.

Something deep and guttural stirred inside of him, so deep that it made him feel nauseous, his chest swelling with anger, the kind he’d never really felt before.

The way this guy, and _Minho_ were ever _anything,_ was the biggest mystery of his life.

He headed across past the mass of people lingering around the room, tugging the cabinet open and pulling out a glass that was questionably clean at best. He poured some filtered water out of the jug grasping it in his hands and trying to slip out of sight back through to the garden.

“Jisung! Hey you!” Hyunjin cooed, calling across to him, and summoning him over with a crooked finger, “where have you been all night, I haven’t seen you since the game, earlier?”

He was fussing, and his eyes were bloodshot and shiny, and Jisung could immediately tell that he wasn’t in the right frame of mind. He was probably high, and Changbin’s eyes were just the same shade of baby pink.

Jisung’s eyes flitted down for a moment, he couldn’t help noticing Changbin’s hand placed tentatively over top of Hyunjin’s kneecap from the other counter stool. He watched Hyunjin spin himself around in it, and pull his leg the other way, in Jisung’s direction, seemingly to block his path back down the centre of the room to the patio doors, not letting him leave.

“I hope I didn’t scare you when I kissed you earlier…” He said, still smiling. Hyunjin leaned forward, stroking the side of his bent index finger across Jisung’s cheek, startling him slightly.

“Uh, not at all! It’s just, well, like uh— Minho’s… Minho’s kinda drunk, so I’m j-just looking after him,” Jisung stammered out, the words struggling to form as Hyunjin gawked at him.

“Is he okay?” Changbin suddenly asked.

“Why the fuck do you care?” Jisung spat back, with zero time to even process what he had said, and he watched the older man physically recoil at the response. 

Jisung’s heart tightened within his chest; he’d never want to speak back to someone older, let alone someone like Changbin, who could ruin his entire life with just words.

To begin with, it seemed like the older man’s eyes had widened with _anger_ ; like he was going to cuss him out, but then suddenly, as they stared at each other for a fleeting moment, his face dropped, and the rage seemed to filter away.

It was like for a brief moment, Changbin realised that Jisung _knew_ about what had happened between them.

He didn’t say anything, swallowing his words down.

“Don’t be a stranger, Jisung…” Hyunjin said, cocking his head to the side, “if you ever get bored, you can come and talk to me, so you don’t get lonely without Felix,” he teased, winking at him as he left.

He wasn’t sure if it was the beer goggles, making him seem more attractive in his rather fetching new shirt, or if he was simply trying to get a rise out of Changbin, but it almost seemed like Hyunjin was _flirting with him._

It also served to remind him that Felix was still upstairs with Chan, Minho was crying, and he was an awful friend for even considering bringing them both here.

He had royally fucked up.

🐱

“Here, have some water,” Jisung said, stumbling back across the grass to find his best friend still slumped against the wall, pretty well hidden and out-of-sight next to the recycling and compost bins. 

Only Minho could make compost, still look kind of good.

“Thank you Sung, you’re so great to me,” he said, bringing it to his lips with both hands cupped around the glass, taking a small sip. 

“You’d do the same.”

“I probably wouldn’t, you’re just better than I am.”

Jisung chuckled, before the sound of raucous laughter started filling the garden, the doors flying open.

The youngest freshman of their dorm was wearing what Jisung could only describe as a _pimp coat_ , with his black undershirt totally unbuttoned, waving in the wind. He had white sunglasses on outside, with two girls and a guy hanging off of every word, laughing at every joke he told as they made their way down the yard.

“Is someone fucking near that wall?!” he shouted, slurring all of his words and Jisung came to realise that their little spying, CIA freshman neighbour, might not be quite as innocent as he let on.

“Uh, Jeongin, is it?” Jisung asked, grimacing at the state of the boy in front of him.

“Yep, Jeongin! I’m tot-ally fucked, I can’t even see straight. This is the best night of my life! I think I kissed a senior!”

“Where’d you get that furry coat?” Minho asked, still slumped over, finally regaining the function to speak without barfing.

“It’s Chan’s! He gave it to me to get me out of his room so he could take the Aussie kid up there!” He hiccupped, throwing a thumbs up under the furry sleeve that engulfed the entirety of his hand, “they’re gonna _fuck!”_

Both Jisung and Minho’s eyes darted back to look at each other, locking instantly. A wave of fear seemed to resonate with both of them.

“Shit. Minho… You don’t think they’re doing the same shit to Felix that they did to you…?”

“I mean… Felix is kind of an easy target, right? He’s innocent, quiet… It’s probably too late but…” Minho said, his head falling down to his chest again.

Jisung rose to his feet, sighing at the _sheer amount_ of exercise he’d been doing tonight already.

He had to find Felix and get him out of there. There was no way he could watch two of his friends be hurt by the shitty people in this house.

🐶

“What was that about, then?” Hyunjin asked him, his hand propping his face up against the kitchen counter as he slunk back down into the stool.

“I should ask you the same thing? Someone got a little crush on the _Cheeks kid_ , huh?” Changbin spat back, poorly hiding his annoyance at watching it unfold in front of his eyes. _“Oh_ _Jisung, where have you been?!”_ he mocked, mimicking Hyunjin’s voice and cackling through his light-headedness.

“Oh please, stop being so whiny! Besides, why did Jisung just shout at you like that anyway, huh?” Hyunjin asked, leaning in closer to place his finger against his chest, “Mr. Bigshot gets shouted at by freshmen now!? How’d you even know him?” Hyunjin asked.

“I don’t know him at all. I know Minho, pretty well, though.”

He swallowed, realising what he’d said. He tried to play it off, relaxing his shoulders and scanning around the room like he hadn’t even realised what he’d said, but Hyunjin’s interest seemed to peak, as he hung on every word.

“Lee Minho? The quiet one, that hangs out with Jisung?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s… _Real_ cute.” Hyunjin said, teasing him, prodding him to reveal more.

“Mmm-hmm. Can we not, talk about him?” Changbin responded, dismissing it best he could.

“Ooh? I’ve hit a nerve...?” Hyunjin queried, staring at him, angling his face to see his expression as his head dropped down, “wait, you’ve… Oh my God, you were _with him?_ ”

“Shut up, it wasn’t like that...”

“Do tell.”

“Whatever. Yeah, we had a thing, last year, a while back. All physical, nothing… Like _that,_ or anything,” Changbin said, swigging from the bottle that he’d had wrapped in his hand for the past fifteen minutes.

It tasted like shit. Much like the topic of this conversation.

“Wow, I’m amazed a guy like you could attract someone _that hot_ , to be honest. No wonder you think you have a chance with me,” Hyunjin said jovially, taking his own drink to his mouth.

“Give it up, I don’t want to talk about it.”

He could see the way Hyunjin was messing with him, but he wasn’t in the mood to entertain it anymore. He suddenly felt anxious and uneasy, like Hyunjin could see through his façade. It made no sense to him, but it felt like the younger man was mocking him, laughing at him. Everything felt wrong.

“Oh, Changbin, Changbin, Changbin…” Hyunjin said, leaning in towards him, “if I’m going to even give you the time of day, you might as well make it worth my while and tell me...”

He tried to hide the frustration, but Hyunjin really knew how to push his fucking buttons, and talking about Minho, was the catalyst of a thousand buttons being pushed at one time.

“Fuck you, you conceited little shit,” Changbin spat out through his teeth, and Hyunjin’s head suddenly flicked up at the sudden explosion of aggression in his voice, “get the fuck out of here.”

He forced himself up out of the chair with so much force the stool went skidding under him, sliding across the kitchen floor. Everyone in the room turned around to face them, letting out little shocked noises, and Hyunjin’s face immediately flushed red in his embarrassment.

“Woah? It was just— just a joke, I thought you could handle it—” Hyunjin stuttered, throwing his hands up defensively in front of him.

Changbin closed the space between them, pointing his index finger straight in the younger man’s face.

“You heard me. Get the _fuck_ out of my house. If you think I’m going to sit here, and let some arrogant little kid talk to me like that, you’re out of your mind.”

🐱

Jisung swung up the stairs, hoisting his tiny frame up and around the bannister.

“Hey, ’scuse me, out of my… _Hey_! Excuse me!” he said, shimmying past and bowing profusely whenever some scary jock would hold eye contact for too long. Some of the people he was scattering were people he’d already bumped past on his first escapade down the stairs…

He came to a door at the end of the hallway, with ‘ _Chan’s room, do not enter under any circumstances’_ written across it, and threw his ear against it. He couldn’t hear either of their voices, and thankfully, no moans, no grunts, or anything of _that kind_ , either. He pulled the handle round, frantically twisting it either way, but it shunted half turned.

It was locked, so he rattled it around a little.

“Felix?” he shouted, banging on the door with his flattened hand, his palm ricocheting off of the wood as he smacked at it, “Felix are you in there?!”

He heard the noise of the tumbler suddenly sounding as the door finally unlocked, and Felix’s head slipped through the crack in the door, his little face looking dazed and kind of puffy.

“Jisung? What’re you—”

“We need to go! Minho’s in a bad way and I’m worried that…” the words stopped coming out of his mouth, as he scanned up and down Felix’s body in panic, “w-where’s your orange sweater?”

He looked back up at the boy then around the part of the room he could see through the door. His original, rust-colored, turtleneck was on the ground just behind his feet. It had been replaced with a rather large, black t-shirt that flooded his entire frame and hung off one shoulder.

Jisung couldn’t help but notice how his lips looked reddened, and the way his hair messily framed his face compared to its earlier style.

Chan slunk out of the shadow behind him, resting his head against Felix’s shoulder, squinting his eyes in confusion.

“Felix and I are talking in here, Jisung. Something wrong?” Chan said, placing his hand against the door frame and resting his head against Felix’s arm. It was almost _territorial_ feeling, and Jisung felt his heart hitch for a moment, like it was too late.

“You…—”

Jisung looked up at the older man, seething behind his lids, thinking about how he treated his best friend, how he humiliated him. He wanted nothing more than to defend Minho’s honor, to tell him to _get away from Felix_ , even though it was probably way too late for that.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. So, instead, he gritted his teeth.

“No—Nothing’s, nothing’s wrong, man. I’m going to get going, I’ve had too much to drink and Jeongin and Minho are pretty bad too… So, I’m gonna go them back to the dorm. I just came to tell Felix that we were heading off.” 

“Okay, I’ll come too, let me just get my stuff!” Felix said, smiling at him reassuringly, as if nothing had even happened.

“You sure, Felix?” Chan said, softly sliding his arm around his waist, “you can always stay here, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry Chris, but if everyone else is going it’d be better if I went, too. It’s not fair for Jisung to take the fall and look after everyone!”

“You’re so sweet, you know that?” Chan chuckled, beaming across at the younger man, pulling his hand up to brush his thumb under the younger man’s chin. “I’ll text you tomorrow, about, _that thing_ , yeah?”

🐶

The party was dwindling down, and Bambam was rounding people up to finally call it a night. It was nearing 3am, and Chan did a walk-around to check who was in which room, laughing every time someone cussed him out for ‘interrupting’ whatever was going on inside.

The music had settled in to some slower R’n’B whilst everyone in the living room wallowed around in their post-drunk high, numerous people passed out in the hallways, slumped against the walls.

Changbin plunged back down on to couch with a sigh, his white t-shirt covered in stains from the amount of bright neon drinks he’d consumed, the odd cigarette burn and lipstick marks all across his front from where they’d been doing body shots earlier in the night.

Changbin peered around, to see _Seungmin_ propped up against one of the armchairs on his own, his head resting against his palm as his head tottered around in his sleep-starved, probably-still-tipsy state.

“Hey, Sweater. Come over here…” Changbin croaked out, his voice shot from the shenanigans of the evening.

The younger man’s head immediately darted up at the mention of his nickname, and Changbin patted the seat next to him, summoning him over with his hand.

“Oh… Changbin, it’s _Seungmin_ , by the way… Where’s Hyunjin? I haven’t seen him in a while—”

“Does it matter?” The older man cut in.

“Well, I just need to make sure that he’s okay—”

“—Damn, Sweater, you didn’t fuck around tonight, huh?” he said, his eyes audaciously travelling up and down Seungmin’s body as he wandered over in a daze. He rested his hand on his own outer thigh, the back of his hand against the outside of Seungmins’.

“W-what?” The younger man stuttered, his words hitching in his throat.

“You just show up here, looking like _that?_ Didn’t know you had it in you, if I’m honest...” Changbin stared him down, waiting for the moment the younger man’s gaze would drop.

It was almost immediate; he shied away so quickly it was almost overwhelmingly _too easy_. Changbin suddenly felt like a lion in front of a gazelle.

“Well, I don’t know. I guess I thought it might make me look a bit—”

“Hot?”

“I- No... Not ‘hot’, I just…” Seungmin stuttered, blushing from the compliment, “thought it might be good to change my style up, maybe.”

“You going back to your dorm, tonight?” Changbin said, raising his arm to place it behind the back of the couch, his body leaning in towards the younger mans.

“Uh, yeah. Jeongin and I were going to share a cab—”

“Pretty sure Jeongin’s gone home? I saw him leave with Jisung, Felix and Minho. About half hour ago, or so?” Changbin said, offering up the information with a tilt of the head.

“He… He did?”

“Damn… Well shit, Sweater. That sucks. I thought you knew?”

“You know… I came here tonight… Thinking I could make Hyunjin miss me, because he’s been hanging out with _you guys_ so much. I thought Jeongin was my friend, too. I guess I was—I was wrong. About all of it…” his voice cracked a little, the alcohol making him more emotional than usual, “I can’t even hold down a friendship with someone who eats sprinkled donuts for _breakfast_!” he wailed out, suddenly bursting in to tears against Changbin’s lap.

“Shit… C-come on now Sweater, don’t get all sappy on me... I—”

“Yeah, why would you care anyway? You only tolerate me because you want to get with Hyunjin! That’s the story of my life. Nobody ever wants me, it’s always about Hyunjin!”

“Holy… Uh… Holy shit, uh… T-that’s not true? I’m surprised, honestly. You’re out here looking this good, and nobody wants you? I don’t believe it...” 

“R-really? You think I look, alright?” Seungmin said, sniffling, rubbing his sleeve across his nose.

“Of course. I mean, if it helps, it’s not just you. Hyunjin pissed me off tonight, too.” Changbin said, placing his hand on the top of Seungmin’s shoulder, patting it _sympathetically._

“What? Why? What happened?”

“Spewing some shit, judging my character, thinking he’s better than me…”

“He does that, sometimes.” Seungmin responded, looking back at him, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Looks like… He’s played us both for chumps, huh?” he said dryly, watching Seungmin slowly nod his head in agreement before looking back to him. “So, maybe we should… Get him back?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW!!!! i'm sorry i'm a mess, this was a mess, eveyrthing's on fire and a mess okay thanks  
> <3 https://twitter.com/YfwbbS


	11. Propositions

🐱

Jisung woke up on his dorm floor, Felix sleeping soundly across in his own bed, whilst Minho was curled up in _his_ bed, wrapped in his fuzzy comforter, spooning Felix’s Ryan plush. There was a red bucket beside him acting as a ‘just in case’, and a half-drunken glass of water propped up on the bedside table.

Jisung groaned, feeling the dull ache of his hipbone against the hardened carpet. He surged forwards to sit up, rubbing his hands over his face in a daze. He caught sight of the alarm clock on the centre wall, it was 11:13am.

The pain in his hipbone was suddenly replaced by the insufferable whirling in his stomach, and the dryness of his mouth as he smacked his lips together. His head was pounding.

He crawled over to the side of his bed, perching up against the wooden frame to poke his head up, watching Minho soundly sleeping with his mouth half open for a few seconds.

“Min. Hey, _pssst_ , wake up,” Jisung whispered, reaching over to nudge at his shoulder. 

Minho opened one eye in response, immediately scowling at the light coming in through the corner of the pulled curtains, and shook his head, before slowly slumping back down against the pillow.

Jisung had given him some pyjamas to wear, which were definitely a little too short, stopping at the ankle. They also kind of cut into his arms, and Jisung hadn’t really noticed that Minho had become a little stronger since he’d come to college. He was definitely bulkier than Jisung remembers, he just wasn’t really sure why he hadn’t noticed it, until now.

“Can I get in my bed? My back hurts on the floor,” he whispered again, and Minho grunted a little, before opening the blanket open, holding one arm up to summon him in with a dozy nod.

“Thanks,” he whispered, Minho barely even stirring. He slipped into the space in front of him, on his side facing away from him, barely enough breathing room for one person let alone two. Minho slumped his arm down over his midriff.

This was the first time they’d been this close again since he started coming to college.

He and Minho used to be like this, always closer than the others. Minho used to, in his own words, ‘protect him’, wrapping himself around him whenever he could. They were always pretty warm, curled up watching films, or laying around, draped across each other doing homework, but Minho had been standoffish since he got here.

He figured now that they had no secrets between them, and he knew the _reasons_ behind it, it could go back to how it was, and Minho wouldn’t be so reserved around him, anymore.

He was grateful, the feeling of Minho curling his arm around his stomach and patting it like he used to, the slight sigh against his ear; it was comfortable, like before.

He wondered if Changbin used to lie with him, too. The idea made him feel a little sulky so he pushed the thought aside, and wiggled in closer to Minho's embrace.

When he opened his eyes again, some hours had passed, and Felix was up, his hair dripping wet as he patted over his head with a towel, walking back into the room on tiptoes, as not to wake them.

“Morning, Jisung,” he whispered, “how are you feeling?”

“Better than I did when I first woke up,” he said, pushing himself up against his elbows against the headboard, and Minho stirred a little too at the movement. The arm slumped around encasing Jisung’s stomach, tightened around his waist, head nuzzled into the side of his ribcage.

“Min, come on, it’s nearly 1pm...” he said, gently patting the side of his arm, making the older man groan and crack one eye open.

“Wait, what? It’s 1pm? Geez, I must’ve slept so well…” the older man responded, slowly peeling himself up from the bed too, rubbing his eye sockets with his other hand.

“Well, that makes one of us,” Jisung scoffed, “how’s your hangover?”

“I think I probably vomited most of the alcohol in my stomach up…” he said, “so I actually feel fine…”

“I have a headache, but I’m okay, too!” Felix added.

Jisung noticed the spritely blonde was still wearing the large black t-shirt that definitely wasn’t his, obviously slipping it on after he’d showered. He was sure he’d even seen Felix lift the sleeve and _smell it_ , when he walked through the door.

“Felix, what happened to your shirt?” Jisung asked, unable to keep his mouth shut. Minho’s head shot up too to look at it inquisitively.

“Oh, this is…” the blonde boy said, trying to act nonchalant but totally failing by the little smile that he couldn’t shake off.

“That’s Chans’, Felix…” Minho responded resolutely, shaking his head.

“Yeah! We were just talking and then I was kind of tipsy so I maybe… I spilt the bottle of wine across his floor and all over his bed, so he leant me this to wear!”

“You cannot expect us to believe that…” Jisung scoffed, “you were in there for so long! And your _face_ , you were…”

“No, I’m serious! I did spill the wine! Besides, we just spoke, about home, and family and stuff! Then he said he thought it was amazing that we managed to meet, and how we both were born in the same…” he trailed off, looking in between the other two men, who were questioningly cocking eyebrows at him in perfect unison, totally not buying it, “and… Fine. Maybe we kissed.”

“You what?!” they shouted in unison, both flying up so quickly that they nearly knocked each other out.

“Twice...”

“Twice?!”

“Yeah, but nothing else, or anything, it was… Kind of nice, I think? And he said he wants to take me on a date.”

“A date?!” they both echoed.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Felix,” Minho said, “that’s what _he_ did to me, before he—”

He cut his words short abruptly, and Jisung’s eyes zipped back to look at him in concern. He patted the back of Minho’s hand as a gentle reassurance that he was there and that he didn’t have to say anything if he felt uncertain.

Although Minho liked, and had accepted Felix into his life, he obviously didn’t feel as comfortable telling Felix the story, just yet. The older man stroked his thumb over the back of his hand, giving him a re-assuring kind of ‘ _I’m fine’_ smile from the corner of his mouth.

Jisung peeled himself up from his bed, as he yanked his probably slightly damp towel from the back of the chair, grabbing some shampoo and slipped through the room, heading off out to shower.

He patted Felix on the shoulder as he swept past him, giving it an affectionate squeeze on his way out.

🐱

As Jisung left, there was an awkward feeling in the air. Minho had been sitting up in his bed, rubbing at his eyes before he just started staring at him, looking him up and down. Felix could see his reflection in the mirror.

Minho could be kind of scary when he wanted to be, but mostly he was just really cute when it was only the three of them. Felix had grown to like him quite a lot, he was quite caring when they were alone.

He finally looked towards the older man, who was sporting a disapproving look on his face.

“Felix, just be careful, okay?” Minho said, smiling at him reassuringly, “I just don’t want you to get hurt,” the older man said, before finally swinging himself around to get out of the bed.

Felix smiled at him back and nodded, before he heard his phone vibrate on the nightstand.

He quickly reached for it, seeing checking the name on the notification, his face immediately lighting up in excitement.

_12:49_ **Chris** **🦘**

Hey you, hope you’re feeling ok after last night? X

_12:51_ **You:**

hey!! yes! I’m fine thanks :} bit of a headache but its okkkk~

sorry about your bed, again >.< x

 _12:52_ **Chris** **🦘**

No worries! It didn’t stain or anything. Lucky it wasn’t red lol

So you up to much today? X

 _12:54_ **You:**

no not today. Jisung and minho are probably gonna head to the coffee hut in a bit so I might tag along and get a hot chocolate or sthing

i have coursework due in on mise en place and methodology so i will probably knuckle down :} x

_12:55_ **Chris** **🦘**

I have no idea what that means but I’m sure you can tell me all about it on our date, right? x

 _12:56_ **You:**

ooohhhhh

i wasn’t sure if you were serious about that ^^;;

because of the drinking… ;; x

 _12:57_ **Chris** **🦘**

Of course i was! Are you not? x

 _12:58_ **You:**

oh nononono, it’s ok!

well i’m up for it, if you are ^-^ x

 _13:00_ **Chris** **🦘**

Totally!

There’s a kind of ‘autumnal carnival’ thing going on in town next Friday night if you wanted? It’ll be fun, just some rides and food stalls, and stuff?

Is that the kind of stuff you like? 😅 lol

Idk i don’t go on dates often, haha x

 _13:02_ **You:**

oh! that sounds really cute!

i mean i assumed you would go on lots of dates

that’s kind of why i’m surprised that you asked me D: x

 _13:03_ **Chris** **🦘**

Nooooo, I really don’t! Like I said, people say stuff, I guess!

You shouldn’t be surprised, you’re super cute x

 _13:04_ **You:**

oooooh ok ^^;;; tjjanks

*thaanks

**thanks

asfdsjfhsjkdfh

sorry

 _13:05_ **Chris** **🦘**

Haha, it’s okay, asfdsjfhsjkdfh to you, too! x

 _13:06_ **You:**

ehehehh

are you inviting anyone else? is it like a group date or just us? x

 _13:07_ **Chris** **🦘**

Oh, just us, like a proper date, if that’s cool?

I just kind of wanted to get to talk to you, you know?

Get to know each other a little better? x

 _13:09_ **You:**

yeah sure!

though the last time we talked alone, you did kiss me ^^;; x

 _13:10_ **Chris** **🦘**

Ah… 😳

Yeah, sorry about that if that made you feel weird?

Lost my senses, for a moment 😉 x

 _13:11_ **You:**

it’s ok!! i didn’t mind it, it was actually… ahhhhh ≧◡≦

just shocked me a lil bit but it’s cool!

when does it start?

 _13:12_ **Chris** **🦘**

Well I’m glad to hear it was ahhhh! 😉

6pm-ish, should be good? x

 _13:13_ **You:**

yay i’m excited :}}}

 _13:13_ **Chris** **🦘**

Can you do me a little favour?

 _13:14_ **You:**

uhhh? ᵔᴥᵔ

yeah, sure? x

 _13:15_ **Chris** **🦘**

Can you not tell Jisung about it? About the date?

I’m meant to have a tutoring lesson with him but I’m cancelling for you, lol x

 _13:15_ **You:**

omg i cannot lie to save my life D: x

especially not Jisung!!

 _13:16_ **Chris** **🦘**

Well, in fact, maybe let’s just kind of keep the whole thing just between us two?

Just for now, at least.

No one needs to know about it

Just us, right? x

 _13:17_ **You:**

oh

okkkkkkk

i guess that’s fine x

 _13:00_ **Chris** **🦘**

Our little secret!

I’d just like to keep you for myself for a little while, that’s all! x

 _12:51_ **You:**

oh right! sure

that’s cute of you to think of it like that ^-^

Chan was so sweet, and considerate.

The idea of going to a carnival with him gave Felix butterflies in his stomach; the rides, the candyfloss, the awful deep-fried wieners on sticks.

He imagined Chan winning him a stuffed toy, or maybe winning the top prize on one of those ‘test your strength’ mallet-type things, like in the movies. Chan was strong, he could probably beat the game, and maybe they’d walk together a little while after. Chris liked the stars, so maybe they could stargaze after.

Felix had no idea why Minho had such a problem with him, but after spending more than an hour just talking to him the night before, tipsily giggling, cracking jokes and reminiscing about their home, he was sure he was making the right decision to give him a chance. Plus, he was pretty cute.

Minho’s _uncertain eyebrows_ at him smiling his phone did make him falter a little, though.

🐶

“Hey… Get up, you’re taking up the whole couch…” Jeongin whined, toothbrush in mouth as he slapped the arm that Seungmin had hanging over the side of the chair. “I said hey, get up.”

“Wha… What?” the older man stirred.

“It’s like 3pm and you’re passed out on the _one_ couch that’s not covered in vomit...” Jeongin sighed.

Seungmin opened his eyes, squinting around the room. He was in the dorm living room, sprawled out over the entire three-seater whilst the pool table was covered in red, plastic cups and garbage. The coffee machine communal area was littered with empty packets, cigarette butts and unspecified spilt liquids all across the work surface.

Whatever happened last night, some of his dormmates obviously brought some of the party back.

“Jeongin? What the fuck?” he groaned, leaning himself up into a sitting position, pushing his hands through his hair. He could feel a bump on the front of his forehead. He had no idea how it had gotten there.

“What the fuck _me_? What the fuck _you_?! Where did you go last night?” Jeongin asked.

“Oh, I stayed in Changbin’s room. I was kind of—”

“You what?!” Jeongin screamed, “Seo Changbin!?”

“Yeah, after you _ditched me,_ I had to find someone else to hang out with!” Seungmin replied accusatorily.

“Firstly, I was in hot tub with like four other people, so, there’s that. And secondly – _The_ Seo Changbin?! That’s insane, dude. I didn’t take him as your type! You really are much wilder when you’re drunk!” he said, clapping his hands together. 

He wandered across to his coffee machine, flicking some of the trash away from it and placing his mug down, reaching for the on switch.

“My what?” Seungmin questioned.

“Do you know how many people are gonna be talking about this?!”

“I mean…”

“I can’t believe you had it in you Seungmo, and with _Seo Changbin_ , no less! You’re on a roll. Next we just gotta get you a bike of your own—” the younger man trailed off, stirring the coffee water with the handle of his toothbrush.

“Wait you really think people will be talking about me?” Seungmin asked, perking his head up from the couch.

“Totally! You scoring Seo Changbin?! That makes you newsworthy. We gotta milk this for all it’s worth!”

“Why?! Why the hell would I want to—”

“—I told you Seungmo. I just enjoy the chaos. This place needs a little shake-up, and we're about to flip it upside down, best frienderino.”

Seungmin clenched his eyes together, trying to bring his vision in to focus. His head was pounding, and his eyes stinging from the makeup he’d forgotten to remove last night that was currently bunching up in his tear ducts. 

Jeongin thought he’d _slept with_ Changbin, and once people caught word, they’d probably think the same.

We swallowed harshly, internally terrified of what people might think if they found out the truth, or what Hyunjin might say about it when he saw him.

🐶

“Changbin! Open the fucking door! Now!” Hyunjin screamed, banging his fist on the outside of the colorful, thick, frosted glass, “you are so fucking out of line!”

He curled his fists up as he paced at the doorstep, waiting for the inevitable sound of the _thump_ of feet descending the spiral stairs in the hallway. He could vaguely see a body through the distortion of the glass, definitely Changbin-sized, fumbling with the door chain.

Changbin peeked his head out through the side window, before pulling the heavy entrance door open. He was wearing just his red sleep shorts and a long, black t-shirt, hair tousled all across his face and unstyled.

He looked through his bangs at him, smirking as soon as he realised who it was, leaning irritatingly against the door frame.

“Oh, hey pretty boy?” he looked at his wrist, signalling a watch that wasn’t there. “Weird. It’s only 4pm, isn’t your regularly scheduled psychotic episode usually set for 5? You running behind time, today?”

Hyunjin immediately barged his way in through the door, shunting his shoulder, making the older man arrogantly laugh at him as he pushed past. Hyunjin’s fists were balled up so tightly, shoulders tensed all the way to his ears. He summoned the courage, before spinning back around to stare at him directly.

“Chan brought him back to the dorm at fucking _11am,_ after he stayed in y _our room_!”

“Yeah, turns out Sweater can’t handle his liquor, huh?” Changbin said, pulling the chain across nonchalantly, “he wouldn’t smoke with me like you would though, too busy begging me to tell him if he was attractive, or not” he chuckled, with a shrug.

“How fucking _dare_ you try it on with Seungmin! You _know_ he barely drinks, and he’d made all that effort because he wanted to have a good time and you openly took advantage of him!” Hyunjin screamed.

“Oh please, pretty boy. Try it on? Take advantage? We barely even _kissed_ , that’s all, because he was all over me and I was bored. We didn’t do anything below the belt. Trust me, kid was out like a light after he cried for like twenty minutes about how no one liked him. Pretty anti-climactic if you ask me…”

“I swear to God, I’m about to wrap my hands around your goddamn throat!”

Changbin let out a hearty _pffft_ , before his eyes wandered back to catch Hyunjin’s gaze, his hands moving to his hips. His stare was unwavering and tense, challenging almost.

“Here you are again, thinking you can talk to me like that, in my own house this time, too? Your parents must have raised you badly, huh?”

“I have no idea what Chan sees in you, but you better stay away from Seung, I—I mean it.”

 _“Jealous_ , pretty boy?” he said, his tone changing completely into something more sinister. He took a few strides towards him, stepping him backwards, as if to defy him to talk back again. Hyunjin absolutely would not let him win, no matter if he had found his hands shaking slightly.

“What _the fuck_ did you just say to me?” he replied, with faked confidence.

“Oh, just you, being pissed at the fact that, for once, someone called you out on your bullshit... Oh, and not to mention the fact that I didn’t give you the attention you _so clearly crave from me_ all the time. So, that must’ve pissed you off too, huh?” he replied, defaulting back to his regular smirk.

Hyunjin’s mouth dropped wide open as he plunged his head forward, letting out a breathy laugh at the _utter audacity_.

“That is so fucking rich it’s unreal! Attention?! Have you seen yourself!? I don’t need attention from you!”

“No? So why are you mad, then? What if I told you I was planning on giving your little friend a test run, huh? He’d look kind of cute on his knees, don’t you think?” he said, plainly, tilting his head off to the side with a _clack_ of his tongue.

“I am—I am _not_ doing this right now. I refuse to stoop to your fucking level,” Hyunjin said, with a straight face, trying to ignore the infantile behaviour and play it off as best he could.

“Shame, all that pretty make up he put on, just to impress _you_ , wouldn’t last long whilst he was su—

Hyunjin lunged forward, crashing his palms against Changbin’s shoulders, and shoving him against the wall, throwing his hands back up immediately to point his index finger straight in his face, using his height to his advantage.

“Don’t you fucking dare! I mean it!” he shrieked out.

“Or what? Huh? He’s a grown man, Hyunjin… He can do what he wants,” he continued to tease, wiling Hyunjin up to the point where he felt like his chest was about to collapse. 

“You know he’s not like that, you fucking asshole! You don’t even like him like that!” he said, pointing his finger directly in his face. He tried to stay strong, but he could feel the sting of his own eyes through his confused thoughts. 

“Awh. You gonna hit me?” Changbin snorted, twisting the shitty, metal bar in his lip around in between his teeth in a way that set Hyunjin’s blood boiling, “jokes on you, I kinda like that… I knew you were more forceful than you let on _, baby.”_ His eyes lulled half-closed as he stared up at him, looking at Hyunjin so shamelessly it made his head spin.

There was a moment of silence between them whilst Hyunjin’s eyes bored in to his own, he could feel the back of his teeth grinding against the inside of his cheek as he exhaled shakily, trying not to show he was flustered.

But he was.

He seriously was.

He fucking hated this guy.

Hyunjin crashed forward, launching himself at the older man’s lips to lock them in to a hysterical kiss, clinching him in the space between his hands either side of his head.

Hyunjin could feel the older man’s satisfied smile melt into his own mouth, before it quickly shifted into something much dirtier. Changbin ferociously kissed him back, one hand sliding up his back under his denim jacket, the other hand grabbing him by the nape to angle him backwards.

Changbin swung him around against the wall to try and take some kind of control back, and they jutted in to one of the side tables adorning the hallway, one of the rare Chinese porcelain vases that had been in the house for years crashing to the ground and shattering across the marble floor.

Typically, it had been removed and locked away for the party last night, and only put back this morning, to protect it…

“Leave it, c’mon,” Changbin growled cockily into his mouth, kissing frantically as he dragged him up the stairs by his lips, pulling him by the collar of his t-shirt. They made their way up the spiral steps into the upper floor hallway, before Changbin slammed his back against the wall again.

The younger man crashed into the door of one of Changbin’s housemate’s bedrooms, shaking the wood with the impact. Changbin scrambled to pull Hyunjin’s jacket off, the denim and metal poppers scratching against the wood as he shimmied it off over his shoulders and tossed it against the railing of the stairs, so it hung precariously from the banister.

The older man attached his mouth to the free neck that he’d created for himself, sucking a mark deep in to Hyunjin’s neck.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Hyunjin sighed, throwing his head back against the door, “don’t let anyone see, someone might h-hear us,” he mumbled, acutely aware that someone might be behind this particular door.

“It’s like, the afternoon? Who the fuck would see us?” the older man laughed, “but fine, come on”, he said, leading him through to the bedroom that Hyunjin had become strangely familiar with, recently.

It was a state, after last night, and it smelt like dirty, stagnant bong water, but Hyunjin didn’t mind. His brain was far too consumed of being pulled into his bedroom and swung down to sit at the edge of the bed, his mouth agape.

He remembered what he thought before, the last time Changbin had kissed him…

_One kiss was fine, he knew when to stop…_

Yet here he was, being pushed down to sit on to Changbin’s messy bed, still covered in food wrappers from where he’d evidently gotten the munchies after last night.

Changbin quickly locked the door, and walked towards him to stand at the end of the bed, with both of his legs entrapping Hyunjin’s kneecaps as he clambered over his thighs. He immediately ripped the younger man’s t-shirt off over his head, launching it behind him.

Hyunjin felt winded, how hot and heavy it all felt, how fast it was. It was overwhelming his mental aptitude; he knew he shouldn’t be doing this.

_One kiss was fine, he knew when to stop…_

His mind started drifting, wandering out to the depths of his unconscious thoughts; feelings filling his head; about how it would feel, the cold twang of the stainless-steel ring dragging across his body…

Until it _was._

Changbin leant over him, ghosting the cold metal of his lip ring over his stomach and up his torso. He started insistently kissing up his collarbones and then up to his neck as the younger man let out little breathless gasps.

Even for someone of Hyunjin’s experience, it was clear Changbin knew what he was doing beyond his scope… He was rather, _proficient_ , at turning him in to a flailing mess of limbs. No matter how much Hyunjin would outwardly deny it.

The older man laid Hyunjin down fully, as he reached over his head to pull off his own t-shirt, and Hyunjin got a look at him, clear as day – considering it was _4pm_...

Smooth, honey skin wrapped over a bulky, muscular physique.

Hyunjin hated him, _so much_.

His hatred intensified as he realised his _motherfucker_ , had a steel bar though his left nipple, and a black and white compass-style tattoo across the top of his bicep, usually covered by his sleeves or jacket.

“Wow, a nipple piercing, classy...” Hyunjin said to him dryly, lifting up to prop himself against his elbows as he scanned over him.

“Don’t get cocky now, baby. I’ll make you eat those words,” the older said, smiling out of the corner of his mouth. He pulled his own belt clean off, opening his top button and throwing it aside with the mother of all _clatters_ against the wall.

“Holy fuck! I said be quiet! Do you want your whole house to know?!” Hyunjin whined at him.

“Maybe…” he grinned, “these, off, now.” He demanded, slapping his hands overtop of Hyunjin’s outer thighs.

“At least fucking work for it... Jeez…”

“You’re unbelievable,” Changbin laughed, suddenly shifting his weight higher up, until he was straddling just below the younger man’s pelvis at the top of his thighs, unbuckling his high-waisted black pants, allowing Hyunjin to wriggle out of them and toss them aside.

“Fuck, this is… This _cannot_ be happening, holy shit…” Hyunjin sighed, lulling his head back against the bed, watching the older man remove the rest of his own clothes.

“Cold feet, pretty boy?”

“No, trust me, I want _it_ , I just can’t believe I want it with _you_ …” he groaned, finally pulling his eyes back to look at the very much naked man in front of him, totally shameless in the way he just sat there, letting Hyunjin watch him.

And of course, he was… _Impressive_.

He fucking hated this guy.

“Mmm, believe it. I told you I could get you in to bed in two weeks…” the older man cockily derided, yanking his legs down a little.

“Technically, we’ve been here two months, stop pretending you’re some God of getting people to sleep with—”

Changbin leant up, and shut him up with another blistering kiss, pressing him in to the strewn around blankets, cupping his hand tightly around the side of his neck before pulling back again.

“Wait, switch places, I wanna get a good look at you,” the older man said, launching himself down on to the bed and scrambling back up towards the metal headboard to sit against it, cockily throwing his arms around the railings, watching him.

“Wait, what was that?” Hyunjin suddenly asked, cocking his eyebrow.

“What?”

“You cannot be serious, right now…” Hyunjin said, throwing his head back to stifle his laughs, “what the hell is that, on your ass cheek? Is that a tattoo?”

“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. It was kind of a drunk, stick and poke kinda thing...”

“Changbin. You have a sperm tattooed on your ass cheek,” Hyunjin said, firmly.

“The fuck!? It’s not sperm!? It’s the Leo symbol? It’s like, my fucking star sign or whatever…” he groaned, shaking his head.

“How cute. Do our stars finally align, then, Changbin? Or are you still thinking about sleeping with my best friend? Maybe I should consult your ass cheek?” Hyunjin joked, totally failing to hide his laughter as he crawled over top of him, boxing him in under his legs, Changbin grabbing him by the side as their hips met.

“Shut up, pretty boy. Maybe you could make better use of that dumb mouth of yours, huh?” he said, moving his hands down to grab Hyunjin’s ass with both hands and pulling him closer to make the younger man straddle him as he leant in.

“Dumb? Hey, I’m not the one with a tattoo on my ass cheek…”

_One kiss was fine, he knew when to stop…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way i just KNOW chan would type with wink emojis. i just KNOW it.
> 
> and yes, changbin has a leo tattoo on his ass. that's it, that's the comment. 
> 
> hope you all enjoyed! i'm so sorry, this is the biggest delay in a chapter i've had so far but this fic really is a beast. with 4.5-5k chaps each time and trying to make the couples developments kind of tangible it's been a bit draining! i'm sorry <3 i'll really try to stick to schedule moving forward! <3


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